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Second Edition. Price 25cts. 




IN THE 



SPIRIT 



Robert Elsmere 



Xo toe issued in Feb. 189C Price £2^ote. 

HEADACHE 

AN EPITOME FROM 
Dr. Carl Ernst Bock's 

(Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Leipzig, Germany 

BOOK 

OF THE 

HUMAN BODY 

IN 

SICKNESS. 

Translated and Adapted for the Sanitary conditions of the North American 

Continent under authority from the Author and Publisher 

of the Original by 

F. m. ^. CA2si:iv ? 

FROM THE FOURTEENTH EDITION 

Revised and brought forward so as to include the results of the most recent 
progress in medical research and science by 

MAX "VOIST ZIMMEI^MANN 

Doctor of Medicine and Practicing Physician, 

WITH XYLOGRAPHS. 



NEW YORK 

POLYTECHNICAL NEWS COMPANY 

7 Pearl Street, near Battery Park. 



When papacy first organized the N. A. Hierarchy 1789, 
the official statistics furnished, showed a Roman Catho- 
lic population of 44,500. 

The present Roman Catholic population of the United 
States (Hoffman's Catholic Directory for 1890) is esti- 
mated at 8,301,367, which shows an increase in 100 years 
at the rate of 1:186.5. 

It so happened, that in the year 1790 also the first 
general census was taken in the United States of North 
America, showing then a population of 3,929,214. The 
present population, being estimated at 60,000,000, there 
has been an increase of the total population in the same 
100 years at the rate only of 1:15.27. 

Therefore the increase of the Roman Church was due 
to increase in population in general for only one-tenth 
of the total, while nine- tenths of her increase were due to 
the predominent immigration of Roman Catholics and to 
proselytes from other faith communities joining the 
church. A calculation based on these statistical facts 
would also make it appear, that at the same proportion- 
ate increase of both the nation and the Roman Catholics 
the next 60 years would give to the Roman Church a 
majority of the population and of the proportionate vot- 
ing power, thus rendering it probable, that between 1950 
and 2000 all branches of our general Government (Con- 
gress, Judiciary and Executive), would be in the hands of 
the Roman Catholics and of the Roman Pontifex in con- 
sequence. 




Wlti or tie tree, MMB * 
Toe cross was cut,— tlie mate of maa— 

To unit all We, tie tree He Hate. 
prom teatH relieve toe tree, woo can? 

It is eternal Mtore's action, 
prom which may come its resurrection. 



A PROTEST 



DIRECTED TO 



James Cardinal Gibbons 

^RCIJBISHOP OF BALTIMORE, 



AS THE HEAD OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC HIERARCHY 

IN THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA. 

AND AS THE AUTHOR OF THE RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOK 

44 OUR CHRISTIAN HERITAGE" 



» i . ^» i i » 



SEVEN LETTERS 

written in the spirit of 

ROBERT ELSMERE. 



(RIGHT '<% 

BY i V!AR 7 IB9Q.V 

V Sbobl U 



MICH. DB GAVAEELLE, P. V. K 

? 

SECOND REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION. 

NEW YOKE 

POLYTECHNICAL NEWS COMPANY 
7 Pearl Street, near Battery Park. 



mngtO^' 



The Library 

of Congress 

WASHINGTON 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1889, by 

Mich. De Gavarelle, in the Office of the Librarian 

of Congress, at Washington, D. C, under 

No. 36,069 U., on November 27th, 1889. 



DEDICATED 

to all those, 
who consider their intellect 
as their best possession 
and 

Freedom of Conscience 



as conditional to their 



ENJOYMENT OP LIFE. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PREFACE. Page 1. 

DEDICATION. Page 5. 

Preface to the Second Edition. Page 7. 

FIRST LETTER.— To * whom Cardinal 
Gibbons directed His Book, "Our Christian 
Heritage," and to whom not. Page 9. 

SECOND LETTER.— What may be Known 
and Proven and what not. Page 37. 

THIRD LETTER.— On Miracles. Page 65. 

FOURTH LETTER.— The Real Position 
of the Roman Catholic Church Towards 
Agnosticism in Contrast with Cardinal 
Gibbons' Attempt to Prove the Super- 
natural. Page 73. 

FIFTH LETTER.— Different Methods of 
Propagating the Roman Catholic Faith 
under Different Circumstances. Page 77. 

SIXTH LETTER.— The Roman Catholic 
Church is a SeriousDanger in Herself to 
the Institutions of the United States of 
North America. Page 97 

SEVENTH LETTER.— What Creed the 
American Citizen Should Select. Page 83. 



to tlie Second iDciitioxi 



Not for a passing moment have I attributed the speedy 
absorption of the first edition of this "Protest" by the 
public to any virtue of the book. That it expresses the 
thoughts of many, that many are sympathetic to the posi- 
tion it takes, these facts explain the ever increasing de- 
mand for it. "I have read the book, I am pleased with 
it, it is a move in the right direction" such is the criti- 
cism met with. And on inquiry as to what specific 
direction be referred to, answer is made : ei The relaga- 
ting of creeds to a third order in importance to mankind 
as against happiness of mankind in present life and as 
against scientific research and freedom of conscience. 11 
Such criticism came not from an agnostic, but from a 
church man, of professional education and of conserva- 
tive instincts. The author is well aware, that he stands 
only on a platform, which has been built up by other 
better men than himself, and that to their line of thought 
and conclusions, he has added but the one of the super- 
natural being not only unproven but also unprovable for 
human intellect. 

To the author this axiom appeared to be the cap-stone 
to the edifice of agnostic conclusions, and to complete the 
structure and to accomplish its solidification into a 
natural organic total. 

And the author has only one sentiment in the pre- 



— 8 — 

mises, namely: regret, that not one of greater ability and 
better opportunities had undertaken a task, which to as- 
sume enthusiasm for the cause has conduced him. This 
regret mainly rests on the misgiving, that the cause may 
be harmed by the insufficiency of the equipment of the 
author for the task. It is on this account, that I may be 
permitted to say : 

The contest as between his Eminence and the under- 
signed is not fought on even terms. I have to rely on 
my own limited mental resources exclusively. My time 
for composing these letters *had to be cut away from 
the time, I have to devote to gaining support for wife and 
children. If I desire to refer to the intellectual product 
of others, I have to search for the book in public libraries 
and make use thereof under difficulties causing loss of 
convenience in working and of time. I have nobody 
willing and able to act as my second in the conflict. 
But his Eminence is surrounded by and has at command 
all the bcoks, that may be wanted for reference, all the 
learned co-workers, who may be useful or desirable for 
careful preparation of manuscript, for prudent discussion 
and suggestions as to plus or minus of contents. Those of 
literary propensities will be able to well appreciate the 
influence on quality of literary work resulting from defi- 
cient equipment and opportunities. And again his Emi- 
nence has as an effective forerunner on the road for ap- 
preciation and publicity the position as the iirst one 
amongst an entire class of men of learning and influence, 
while the undersigned hides under a' : nomdoplumc" 
not because he shuns responsibility, but lest his modest 
position amongst those learned in philosophy and theo- 
logy might cast a shadow on what he has to say. 

To say that such consciousness of deficient support has 
infringed on courage and determination would be con- 
trary to fact. As Martin Luther did say to Charles V., 
so do I say to my judges, the people of the North Amer- 
ican nation. — "Here I stand, I cannot otherwise." 

Mich- De Gavarelle. 



FIRST LETTER. 

To whom Cardinal Gibbons directed His 

book, "Our Christian Heritage", 

and to whom not. 

Your Eminence 

Has directed to the North American public 
in celebration of the one hundredth anniversary 
of the creation of the North American Roman 
Catholic Hierarchy an Address for the evident 
purpose of gathering to the fold of the Roman 
Catholic Church a part of the North American 
people, which your Eminence described as 
follows : 

"The great majority of readers in this 
hustling age, professing to have no leisure, 
and certainly evincing no inclination to peruse 
bulky volumes, no matter how superior their 
merit may be" 

The predecessors of your Eminence in the 
Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church have 



— 10 — 

shown great assiduity at all times since the 
foundation of the Roman Church, and where- 
ever the members of its Hierarchy had not 
succeeded in combining in themselves the 
much coveted temporal power or political 
sovereignty with the spiritual power claimed 
by them, — in persuading the political rulers of 
the exclusive rights, which the Roman Catholic 
Church claimed to hold on humanity in gen- 
eral and on the sovereigns in special. As long 
and wherever absolutism held the political 
power, the Roman Catholic Church used such 
power as an instrument for its purposes, and 
the church did use controversy and persuasion 
only as a palliation to the use of power, or 
when the power of absolutism failed to uphold 
the rule of the church. 

Your Eminence is following the practice, as 
it is hereabove truly stated, in addressing the 
sovereign people, the ruler of the United States 
of America, the people itself, thus yielding to 
political necessity in this case, as the Roman 
Catholic Church has always made it a practice 
to do, celebrating high mass and chanting 
"TeDeum laudamus" with the same fervor to 
Louis XVI., to the Republic, to Napoleon I., 
to Charles X., to Louis Philip, Napoleon III., 
to President Thiers and to his successors. 

Every citizen, whom your Eminence will thus 



— 11 — 

gather to the folds of the Homan Catholic" 
Church, will represent an increase of power for 
the church itself and for its Hierarchy in the 
United States. And be it admitted, that, if the 
expansion of the Roman Catholic Church in 
the United States will continue at the same 
rate, as it has during the past century, the 
majority of the sovereign people of the United 
States of North America will be found, 
wielding its political power under Roman rule, 
disfranchising the minority in the same way 
and manner, as the Jews were disfranchised 
during all of the so-called Christian aera, as 
the Moors and Indians were disfranchised 
under Spanish rule, as the Protestants were 
disfranchised, until with sword in hand they 
obtained their liberty of conscience, or until 
they fled from the home of their ancestors to 
the then inhospitable shores of this continent. 
The sovereign people on this continent in re- 
sisting aggression on the part of the Roman 
Catholic Church and Hierarchy is not as 
favorably situated, as other sovereigns were or 
are in their defence against such aggression. 
The Catholic dukes and kings of Catholic 
Bavaria have claimed and do now claim the 
hereditary prerogative of granting or with- 
holding their placet within their realm not 
only as to the personality of the Hierarchy 



— 12 - 

but also on the public teaching or non-teach- 
ing of newly created dogmas of the church; 
and at the present moment the present king 
of Bavaria refuses, supported therein by the 
highest officials of his kingdom, to abandon 
his prerogative to refuse his placet to the 
official promulgation within his kingdom of 
the newly created dogm& of the infallibility of 
the Roman Pontifex when speaking ex 
cathedra. 

Thus the political power being represented 
by a hereditary individuality possesses a rep- 
resentative voice, by which a protest may 
be expressed against the assumption of un- 
due influences on civil, temporal, political 
matters by the Roman church, but the North 
American people possesses no such authorized 
representative voice, and on the very day, 
that your Eminence's desire will be fulfilled 
in this bustling age, and all those who pro- 
fess to Jiave no leisure for study, will have 
entered the folds of the church, the church's 
political power will be supreme,and the Roman 
Pontifex may ex cathedra hurl an anathema, as 
he has done so often heretofore, against the 
liberty of human conscience to believe or not 
to believe, to search for facts and truth and 
not to submit to the authority of ortho- 
dox teachings. And such freedom of con- 



— 13 — 

science will practically exist no longer on this 
continent, and tlie civil authority of the 
United States will be the executioner of the 
dictates from Rome, the same as Prancon and 
Spanish sovereigns have been. 

From the standpoint of your Eminence this 
would be a boon to the American people, but 
from the standpoint of the reverently un- 
dersigned its prevention would be worth the 
repetition of all the sorrow and suffering of the 
martyrs of science and of libertj^ of conscience, 
whom the Roman Church has persecuted, and 
be worth all the blood, which the martyrs 
for Christianity have shed in resisting to the 
atrocious demands of tyranny then covered 
with the robe of paganism, as your Eminence 
now wears the robe colored after the blood 
of these martyrs of their own liberty of con- 
science. 

And this conviction of a high value of the 
liberty of conscience, doubt and research is 
shared in by many, and in special by the Pro- 
testant denominations still retaining faith in 
at least the divine mission of Jesus Christ, 
notwithstanding your Eminence's eminently 
prudent captatio benevolentiae in calling to 
your Eminence's side, while the battle lasts, 
able and zealous advocates in Protestant 
writers (p. 1), in not despising or rejecting 



— 14 — 

their support— to gladly hold out to them the 
right hand of fellowship, so long as they 

SIDE WITH YOUR EMINENCE IN STRIKING THE 

common foe, declaring it as pleasant to be 

ABLE TO STAND SOMETIMES ON THE SAME PLAT- 
FORM WITH THE CHURCH' S OLD ANTAGONISTS. 

(Your Eminence on p. 1.) 

The battle once won,, the Roman Church's 
ingratitude must by necessity become the ad- 
miration of contemporaneous humanity, and 
the ' 'so long as ' ' the present outlay for formal 
fair play will then be to the Roman Church the 
fullest justification in the judgment of the thus 
entangled humanity. 

Tlxe^ Common Foe. 

" The great majority of readers in this 
bustling age profess to have no leisure, and 
certainly evince no inclination to peruse bulky 
volumes, no matter how superior their merit 
may be." 

It is chiefly to this busy restless class that 
the writer addresses himself and he craves 
their earnest attention. — {p. V.). 

Thus your Eminence specifically stated, to 
whom your address on our christian heritage 
is directed, and when your Eminence speaks 
of the common foe, it should in correct conclu- 
sion be understood that this busy restless class, 



— 15 — 

this large majority of the American people, 
be indeed the common foe, whom your Emi- 
nence proposes to battle with. And this con- 
clusion claims so much more strength of logic, 
as immediately after speaking of the common 
foe, your Eminence declares (p. 2) 

Nor were these pages written in the fond 
hope of influencing professional free think- 
ers, agnostics and other avowed enemies of 
Christianity, who will not learn, lest their 
knowledge might compel them to do well, who 
trade in blasphemy, who glory in their nfi- 
delity, and who earn for themselves a cheap 
reputation by coarsely caricaturing every 
doctrine and tradition, that Christians hold 
dear. Every scoffer at religion is the Ther- 
sites of the Christian camp. Such characters 
are found in every age; and they were aptly 
described over eighteen centuries ago by the 
Apostle as " ungodly men denying the only 
Sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ, 
blaspheming tohatever things they know not; 
and what things soever they naturally know, 
like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted; 
feasting together without fear, clouds with- 
out water, which are carried about by the 
winds, autumnal leaves without fruit, raging 
waves of the sea, foaming out their own con- 
fusion, wandering stars, to whom the storm 



— 16 — 

of darkness is reserved forever ." 

These men profess to have discovered in the 
revealed Scriptures, contradictions and ab- 
surdities and legislative enactments un- 
worthy of the wisdom and justice of the Di- 
vine Lawgiver. They judge everything from 
their own narrow standpoint without regard 
to the circumstances of time and place in 
which the Scriptures mere written. They will 
offer more objections to Christianity in an 
hour titan could be reasonably answered in 
a month. While avowing their ignorance 
of many of the physical laws, that govern the 
universe and that regulate even their own 
bodies, which they see and feel, they will in- 
sist on knowing everything regarding the in- 
comprehensible Deity and his attributes. In 
a word, they will admit mysteries in the 
material world that surrounds them; but 
mysteries in the supernatural world, they 
will not accept. They will deny any revealed 
truth, that does not fall within the range of 
human experience and that is not in accord- 
ance with the discovered laws of nature. But 
to reject a dogma on such grounds cannot be 
approved by philosophy or sound sense. 

In the foregoing quotation from your 
Eminence's book, as in most others thereof a 
division may be made into two parts of an 



— 17 — 

essentially different character, the one being- 
quotation or repetition from some ecclesiasti- 
cal author originally applied to pagans or 
heretics and the other being your Eminence' & 
own expressions. It is to the part last men- 
tioned, that the reverently undersigned pro- 
poses to first direct his or his reader 1 s attention. 

The main idea expressed in the above quoted 
part of your Eminence's book is evidently 
that the book be not written for or directed 
to "professional free-thinkers and Agnos- 
tics" . 

But the undersigned assuming it to be im- 
possible, that your Eminence really intended 
to call the majority of the American people^ 
the common foe of the Eoman Catholic and 
Protestant clergy, but unable to find any 
other foe explained or described in your Em- 
inence's book, may also assume, that in your 
Eminence's mind the foe takes shape in the 
busy, restless class, the same being considered 
as largely influenced and controled by peo- 
fessional free-thinkers and agnostics, and 
that your Eminence intends not to deal with 
the leaders, but to direct vour Eminence's at- 
tention exclusively to the masses following 
them. 

And in this assumption the writer is up- 
held by the following statement (on page 4)> 
in your Eminence's address. 



— 18 — 

This little volume is affectionately ad- 
dressed to a large, and I fear, an increasing 
class of persons, loho through association, 
the absence of Christian training, a distorted 
education and pernicious reading have not 
only become estranged from the specific teach- 
ings of the Gospel, but tchose moral and re- 
ligious nature has received such a shock, that 
they have only a vague and undefined faith 
even in the truths of natural religion under- 
lying Christianity. 

These deserve more pity than blame, they 
have never shared in the Christian heritage 
of their fathers, or they were robbed of it, 
before they had the moral and intellectual 
vigor to resist the invader, or they quietly sur- 
rendered their inheritance before they could 
appreciate its inestimable value. They do 
not boast of their spiritual darkness and 
moral obliquity. They make no parade of 
their irreligion. They feel unhappy in their 
deprivation. 

Some of them not questioning our sin- 
cerity, nor quite denying the objective truth 
of our Christian profession, contemplate 
us with secret envy. But as they fancy, 
that the atmosphere of faith would be op- 
pressive to them, because it involves sacrifices 
hard to Jlesfi and blood, they make no efforts 
to acquire it. Their disease is partly mental 
doubt but still more moral cowardice. 



— 19 — 

Others of them honestly imagine that, in 
accepting and prof essing the truths of Chris- 
tianity, we are in a state of happy delusion, 
and they pity us. 

There are others, I think, who as honestly 
persuade themselves, that we do not believe 
what we preach; and they very naturally de- 
spise us. 

The men, of whom I speak, have but a dim 
and hazy view of the first principles of re- 
ligion. 

To lead them back to the Christian fold by 
starting with an appeal to the divine claims 
of Christ, to the value of the soul, the voice of 
conscience, the importance of salvation, 
the glory of heaven or the sufferings of the 
reprobate,is to assume as granted facts, which 
they do not accept. It is like commencing the 
house at the roof instead of at the founda- 
tion. As grace is founded on nature, so the 
knowledge of supernatural religion must rest 
on natural religion. We waste our time in 
trying to build up the edifice of faith in men 
in whose souls the foundations of natural 
truth have been undermined. 

What is to be gained in exhorting men to 
worship the Trinity, until the misgivings they 
have about the existence of a personal God are 
removed? 

What will it profit us to admonish them to 
submit to the inscrutable decrees of Provi- 



— 20 — 

deuce, if they do not admit a superintending 
Providence, but look upon all events, that 
happen, as the result of physical laws or of 
blind, chance? 

There is little to be gained in quoting Scrip- 
ture to men who imagine, that many facts of 
Scripture are controverted by the deductions 
of science. 

In vain do we strive4o persuade men to be 
solicitous about the salvation of their souls, so 
long as they are seduced into the belief, that 
they have no soul or spiritual being, and 
maintain, that their mental conceptions are 
mere modifications of the brain. 

Before we can persuade them to listen with 
docility to the voice of conscience, we must 
-first convince them, that conscience is the 
voice of God, and not, as they imagine, the 
prompting of a timid nature, or the outcome 
of education. 

Before toe can succeed in urging men to 
keep the Commandments, the distinction be- 
tween virtue and vice, which is well-nigh ob- 
literated from their hearts, must be made 
clearly manifest. 

And we are preaching to deaf ears in re- 
buking sin and in exhorting men to resist 
their evil inclinations, till we get them to ad- 
mit, that man enjoys moral freedom, and dis- 
abuse them of the false notion, that sensual 
desires were given us to be gratified, and that 
it is neither expedient nor possible to resist 



— 21 — 

what a contemporary writer calls "the divine 
rights of passion" 1 

In a word, it is time thrown away to ex- 
patiateon the happiness of eternal life before 
hearers, who do not believe in immortality, but 
who regard death as the term of man 9 s exist- 
ence. 

The class of men of whom I am writing, 
will bluntly say to us : We are longing for 
light, but toe hesitate to become Christians, 
not so much because your religion claims to 
be super natural, as because we suspect it to be 
irrational. We reject your authority as 
teachers; we reject Christian revelation ; we 
take nothing for granted ; we appeal to the 
court of reason and historical evidence. Let 
us try to meet them on their own ground, and 
accept the appeal. 

Your Eminence's here above quoted de- 
scription of the masses standing outside of all 
orthodox christian creeds could not well be ex- 
pected to be other than just such as it is,name- 
ly: one written under the assumption, that 
■all, what is inside of the Roman Catholic 
Church, be good, and all, what be outside of it, 
be bad. 

If in the description as thus made by your 
Eminence, the words Buddhism be substituted 



l Bobert Ulsmere. 



— 22 — 

for Christianity, and Buddhist, for Chris- 
tian, and some allusions to specific christian 
dogmas by allusions to' Buddhist dogmas, it 
would read just as well in defense of Buddh- 
ism as it does of Christianity. Nevertheless 
many of its assertions have the value only of 
assumptions in both cases. 

To controvert at this occasion with your 
Eminence on the interpretation given (by in- 
timation only though) of what in Robert 
Elsmere's mind is expressed as "the -divine 
right of passion" would lead too far. But 
this may be said, that to take passion from 
human nature is to take virtue away with it. 
The method applied on Eunuchs and on 
Chanters to Pontifical Masses in the Sixtine 
Chapel for subduing passions, or the isola- 
tion of sexes in convents have not been fruit- 
ful contributions to the raising of the stand- 
ard of humanity but on the contrary have 
been a source of scandal to a larger extent 
than all or any institutions connected with 
religious practices. 

As to the "longing" of many "for light" 
it rarely guides to the Roman Church. 

It is indeed one of the tenacious illusions 
with the adherents to orthodox creeds, that all 
those standing outside do not feel happy. 
This is indeed not so. Under equal disposi- 



— 23 — 

tions and surroundings agnostics are much 
more at ease (happy) in their true inward 
mind than all those as yet waging battle with 
their doubts in their own mind, and these bat- 
tles will occur in the most stubborn cf chris- 
tian believers, as the confessions of many indi- 
cate. 

Leaving out the controversy with heretics 
(Protestants, etc.) for the present (until later 
on, in case any convert to Christianity might 
incline that way) your Eminence creates ap- 
pearance of meeting those, who bluntly say: 

We are longing for light, but we hesitate 
to become Christians, not so much because 
your religion claims to be supernatural, as 
because we suspect it to be irrational. We 
reject your authority as teachers; we reject 
Christian revelation; we take nothing for 
granted; we appeal to the court of reason 
and historical evidence. 

And your Eminence makes the proposal: 

Let us try to meet them on their own 
ground, and accept the appeal. 

But your Eminence is bound by many vows 
under oath to not meet them on their own 
ground,because,whenever you enter the contest, 
you are under solemn promise, vow and oath to 
never become convinced of any theorem pecul- 
iarly theirs, or of any fact disproving your 
creed, and to reject all what be in conflict 



~ 24 — 

with the Roman Catholic creed. And should I 
or any other agnostic convince your intellect 
of any such theorem or fact, your Eminence 
would go down on your Eminence's knees and 
exhort the Unknown to turn your Eminence's 
mind and to deliver it of the wickedness of 
♦considering intellect superior to the grace of 
believing in one creed. only, namely in that of 
the Roman Catholic Churche 

Though your Eminence enters the arena 
with the assertion of meeting agnostics on 
their own ground, your Eminence in reality 
cannot and will not do this, but will assume 
to be inconvinceable at all times, and that even 
to be convinced would be falling into error. 
Your Eminence does in one place not recog- 
nize professional (learned in their convictions) 
agnostics as those to be addressed and in the 
other (as above quoted) they are represented 
as those, whom your Eminence proposes to 
meet on their own ground. As shown, the 
former assertion is true and the latter asser- 
tion is false in more than one sense. 

Thus your Eminence has directed the ad- 
dress to the intellectually untrained or insuf- 
ficiently equipped, and thus your Eminence 
has prepared thoroughly for pushing aside 
and ignoring any controversing expression, 
which might emanate from a professional 
free thinker or agnostic. 



25 — 

I have most carefully examined the descrip- 
tion, as your Eminence makes it of profes- 
sional free thinkers, agnostics m and other 
avowed enemies of Christianity, whom your 
Eminence excludes from all consideration. 
But finding, that none of the essential qualifi- 
cations made by your Eminence could possi- 
bly be applied to myself, and although not 
claiming to belong to the ignorant classes, as 
your Eminence describes them, I sustain a 
slight hope, that your Eminence may permit 
these open letters to be read and considered 
aside of your Eminence's address by those in 
search of truth. To ignore these letters, to answer 
them with incriminations of the author's inten- 
tions, the author's faculties, the author's learn- 
ing, the author's character or the author's 
life, would in nowise settle the questions at 
issue, but would be in pursuance only of the 
practice of the Roman Church and of the 
method already followed by it so often when 
changing the issue from a question of fact and 
truth to one of personal incrimination. 

Before stating why I do not belong to the class 
described by your Eminence as the "profession- 
al free thinkers, agnostics and other avowed 
enemies of Christianity, for whom your Emi- 
nence's pages were not written, permit me to 
make the solemn declaration, that I do not 



— 26 — 

claim to be one only of a kind in existence, 
but that it is in my sure knowledge as the 
result of personal observation and intercourse 
on two continents for the forty years last past, 
that the description, as your Eminence gives 
it of enemies of Christianity,as quoted above, 
may find its objects amongst the ignorant 
masses, born and raised, where the Roman 
Catholic Church held 'them in its bondage, 
and where the endeavor to throw off its bond- 
age is steeped in hatred against the suppres- 
sion of liberty of conscience. But amongst 
those nations, who bestow a liberal education 
on their rising generations, and who are 
not sufferers from church compulsion, in- 
imity to Christianity is not a necessary com- 
plement to the search for truth, to free 
thinking and to the confession not to know 
(agnostics) many things, which your Em- 
inence claims to know. And after stating, 
that I am one only amongst many hundred 
thousands, I may add, that I am only one 
amongst them standing low in ability and 
learning and virtue when compared with their 
larger number. I now may be permitted to 
show, that your Eminence's description of 
those your Eminence proposes to meet on 
their own ground at one place, and refuses to 
have anything to do with at another place, nei- 



— 27 — 

ther describes them nor me, and that I there- 
fore may raise my voice in defence of humanity 
at large, American citizens in special, ant 
against Roman encroachment on liberty of 
conscience. 

If amongst free thinkers there be a few, who 
make free thought their profession,w7io will not 
learn, lest their knowledge might compel them 
to do well, who trade in blasphemy, (though 
your Eminence would call blasphemy every dis- 
cussion regarding the Supreme Being not en- 
tered upon for the absolute and exclusive pur- 
pose of proving its existence)wfo> glory in their 
infidelity and who earn for themselves a cheap 
reputation by coarsely caricaturing every 
doctrine and tradition, that Christians hold 
dear — is this a characteristic description of 
free thinkers and agnostics as a class ? Your 
Eminence's words are of a kind with the often 
repeated but eternally false assertion, that 
enthusiasm for truth be begotten in vice. If 
your Eminence's description might be called 
correct and then certainly in part only, and 
some of the public lecturers on free thought be 
made to stand as examples of the total class of 
free thinkers, then there is the same distinc- 
tion between them and all the other free 
thinkers, as it is between the Roman Catholic 
Hierarchy and clergy on the one hand and the 
Roman Catholic people on the other. 



— 28 — 

With both, the free thought or agnostic lec- 
turer and the Roman clergyman, their lecturing 
is a matter of finance. Both are apt to overdo 
their task and to betray in their behavior and 
words so much of vulgarity as be inherent to 
tt&eir individual nature. Would your Emi- 
nence consider the Roman Catholic clergy 
as a class to be reprehensible on account of 
the black sheep amongst them ? 

But even then the comparison turns largely 
in favor of free thought. The Roman Catholic 
Church has the benefit of a millennium of ex- 
perience in the education of her clergy. She 
commands millions over millions of dollars all 
Invested in educational institutes for educating 
and training her priests for their vocation. 

And wonderful results has the Roman 
Church achieved in this direction. Be it ad- 
mitted, that of all classes of men with well 
trained intellects, none without exception can 
be compared as a class with the followers of 
Ignatius of Loyola. Their nine years' noviti- 
ate, the curbing of their will under habitual 
obedience makes of them material for an intel- 
lectual contest, as there is none superior and 
probably none equal in existence. What poor 
testimony for the cause itself, if with such ma- 
terial the results of expansion during the last 
centuries of critical research have been oi so 
•extremely minimal dimensions. 



— 29 — 

And then for Agnostics! ! Is there man liv- 
ing, who was educated and trained as an ex- 
pounder of Agnosticism? As yet the very few 
public expounders of this new religion on this 
continent follow this profession as a matter 
of individual ambition as well as of money 
making in sporadic crudely disposed perora- 
tions, with a self appointed enunciator, who 
as yet stands totally isolated from the com- 
munitv of those, to whom their convictions are 
a matter of conscience and enthusiasm, and 
who at this moment gather on common ground 
for working in common. If our results are 
small and poor, our history is short and our 
means are scanty. 

When I began writing the present letters,. 
I sincerely hoped (on account of the im- 
portance of the subject matter treated, on 
account of the class of men, whom I hope to 
reach with these letters, and lastly but not 
leastly on account of your Eminence' s dignified 
position and of my own nature) to not be car- 
ried by the qualities of your Eminence's utter- 
ances into what might appear as a neglect of 
courtesy, even when stating facts to the full- 
ness of their value. But would it not be a 
frustration of my purpose, were I to omit to 
state the fact, in case your Eminence made a 
statement, of which it is self-evident, that your 



— 30 — 

Eminence must have known the inaccuracy and 
even the want of veracity ? 

Can it be otherwise than known to your 
Eminence, that there are living at the present 
age on this and other continents, a distinct 
class of scientists, the intellectual labors of 
whom draw their entire vitality from their en- 
thusiasm for knowledge and truth, and the life 
of whom is in no wise inferior as to doing well 
to that of the plurality of the Catholic clergy, 
and the knowledge of whom, though it may 
have conducted them to agnosticism, does so 
much more compel them to do well, as such 
compulsion does not come from exterior au- 
thority, but from their own convictions, and 
so much more so, as it is part of their convic- 
tion, that no cause will remain without an 
effect, and in consequence, that they cannot 
efface some of the effects of their own acts, by 
simply regretting, proposing to do better in 
the future, and by confessing to one of the 
priests of the Roman Church. Can it be other- 
wise than known to your Eminence, that these 
men are no enemies of Christianity, but that 
they have and confess admiration for what is 
true and noble in Christianity and for what 
christian teaching and christian charity and 
influences have accomplished and do accom- 
plish in educating humanity and in compass- 
ing its passions ? 






— 31 — 

Is it possible, that your Eminence should 
ignore the fact that free thinkers do justice to 
Christianity by freely confessing, that in the 
history of mankind it filled its place as an 
educator of humanity, that in its early and 
pure stages it was fighting for freedom of 
conscience against paganism as later on its pro- 
testant branch fought against its Roman 
branch for the same sublime cause, and as ag- 
nosticism is now fighting against both. 

Is it possible, that your Eminence should 
ignore, that creed and religion are two abso- 
lutely different things, that doubting, investi- 
gating, research for truth may well go together 
with religion, and that they in no wise involve 
scoffing at religion. 

It is true that it is a well established custom 
with the Roman Church, her Clergy and fol- 
lowers to confuse the two entirely distinct ob- 
jects : faith and religion. But though the 
Roman Church has ever held, that not to con- 
fess to her creed, be equivalent to having no 
religion, and though the Roman Catholic 
masses (laymen) do but rarely possess even 
the faculty to make distinction between the 
two, such a position cannot reasonably be 
maintained. Essentially creed and religion have 
naught in common. The zealot or fanatic 
may be at fever heat, as far as creed be con- 



— 32 — 

cerned, but of religion in the true and better 
sense of the word there is but rarely an in- 
gredient in the fanatic's character. To find 
relief from suffering, oppression (mental or 
physical) adherent to human nature in look- 
ing for support to an all powerful and all 
charitable divinity, such as the individual un- 
derstands it, or assumes it, or believes in it. 
and in consequence to relate natural things to 
such divinity, and to shape individual conduct 
by so relating the natural with the supernat- 
ural, — this is religion, to which creeds are as 
garments to the wearer. 

It must therefore be admitted, that the Ro- 
man Church has certainly no monopoly on 
"religion " as such, which is rather a matter 
of sentiment than of reason, and in which even 
an agnostic may find relief in human weak- 
ness and helplessness, as a matter of senti- 
ment, notwithstanding he absolutely denies 
that human observation and knowledge can 
grasp the supernatural and notwithstanding 
he holds, that so far all what has been claimed 
as revelation is both unproven and unprovable. 

Can it be otherwise than be known to your 
Eminence, that the cosmopolitan republic of 
scientists and enthusiasts for truth and knowl- 
edge does not as a class trade in blasphemy , 
does not coarsely caricature every doctrine 



— 33 — 

and tradition, that Christians old dear„ 
(Huxley, Tyndall, and a hundred thousand 
others.)* 

Can it be otherwise than be known to your 
Eminence, that men, such as truly stated, that 
they were found in every age, must by the very 
earnestness of their nature, by the very enthu- 
siasm of their convictions, (though they may 
glory in their own consciousness over their 
emancipation from intellectual bondage), 
by the very nature of their tendencies 
tender the charity of tolerance to those 
living under orthodox authority, that they can, 
not glory in what your Eminence calls infidel- 
ity on their part,but what in reality should be 
called on the part of orthodox believers the 
intellectual bondage, in which the majority of 
humanity is held as yet. And must it not be- 



*Rev. Dr. Emory J. Haynes of the Boston Tremont 
Temple asserts: ' * We have raised a generation of infidels 
on the hill-sides of New England. They are the worst 
heathen that I find in Boston. This cold agnosticism 
bred in New England is the most indigestible thing that 
we have to do with. The saddest thing in New England 
to-day is the old country churches faUing in, and the 
people abandoning all forms of religion.' ' To which the 
Rev. Dr. A. J. Gordon adds: "What Dr. Haynes says is 
true. " And the Boston Watchman says : " The recogni- 
tion of both the Boston pastors above-named is worthy 
of especial notice." — From the JV. Y. Evening Post* 
December 7th, 1889. 



— 34 



known of necessity to your Eminence, that ra- 
tional criticism of the Scriptures is not one of 
the essential distinctions as between the Ro- 
man Catholic church and orthodox Protestant- 
ism on the one side and Agnosticism on the 
other. 

And is it otherwise possible, than that your 
Eminence should know, that it be not true 
what your Eminence states, namely that they 
(the agnostics) will insist on knowing every- 
tiling regarding the incomprehensible Deity 
and His attributes. 

Your Eminence does know, that it is the 
very characteristic confession, on which agnos- 
ticism rests, of knowing nothing about an in- 
comprehensible Deity and His attributes, while 
the Roman church teaches on the church's 
own authority to every man, woman and child 
willing to listen all about the incomprehensi- 
ble Deity and His attributes. 

If your Eminence claims, that, because ag- 
nostics admit mysteries in the material world, 
they must accept as true mysteries in the 
supernatural world, there seems indeed no 
logical connection between cause and effect, 
and if your Eminence claims, that their reject- 
ing of dogmas of the Roman church cannot be 
approved by philosophy or sound sense, then 
this is, as far as philosophy is concerned, not 



— 35 — 

quite correct, because, if your Eminence's phi- 
losophy does not, theirs does,and as far as sound 
sense be concerned, agnostics evidently rely in 
all their conclusions on repeatable, testable ob- 
servations made by sound human senses, be- 
waring with utmost assiduity against illusions 
and hallucinations, of both of which they be- 
lieve a considerable admixture to be contained 
in what the Roman Catholic Church considers 
as revelations. 

Those only ignorant of the facts, as they 
exist, can be impressed by your Eminence's 
statements, such as hereabove printed. With 
the educated part of humanity they can to the 
best create a suspicion only against teachings 
and practices, the pre-eminent representative 
of which must recur to such means of misrep- 
resentation in order to hold his own. 

That your Eminence has specifically de- 
clared (page 4, etc.) to have written for those 
who unaware of causes or reasons have left or 
are withheld from the fold of the church, is in- 
deed no justification for misrepresentations as 
to the character and qualities of their assumed 
leaders, who with full consciousness and by 
their own free intellectual selection stand out- 
side of the realm of the Roman Church and 
of orthodoxism in general. 



SECOND LETTER. 

What mat be Known and Proven 
and What Not 

Tour Eminence 

Has collected with great learnedness all 
such evidence, as will make the existence of 
a self conscious eternal Supreme Being and 
Creator of the Universe appear as highly pro- 
bable, and far be it from the undersigned to 
deny such existence. But your Eminence 
thereby produces the impression, as if your 
Eminence considered facts and quotations as 
stated as sufficient rational proofs of such 
existence, thus claiming a faculty, which your 
Eminence, a human being, does not possess, 
namely, the faculty of rendering proof, using 
natural faculties therefore, for a supernatural 

theorem. 

I specifically protest against being misinter- 
preted to the effect, as if I undertook to deny 
what your Eminence claims to have proven. 






— 38 — 

Were I to deny what to prove or to disprove 
is beyond human faculty, I should commit 
the same error or produce the same erronous 
impression, as your Eminence's book does, 
namely of proving what is unprovable. The 
following exposition will more specifically 
define the position thus taken. 

If it be within human faculty to observe by 
the use of human senses, to ascertain facts by 
methodically repeating and testing observa- 
tions and to thus establish elementary facts, 
and to therefrom form logical conclusions and 
to subject these conclusions and results to 
critical test and to systematize a series of facts 
into a science, if all this be within human 
faculties, than we may accept the following 
facts as having been established. 

1. Man is a part of nature and is subject in 
special to all the laws, which govern nature 
in general. 

2. Therefore what is true for all natural 
things at large is true for man also in special. 

3. There is in nature no effect, but where 
there be a natural cause conditional to such 
effect. 

4. All effects in nature are the results of 
causes consisting in a change in their mutual 
relations or in relation to space at large of 
substances either ponderable or imponder- 



— 39 — 

able, although, what appears as yet as such a 
distinct substance may be a modified quality 
of the same substance, and the cause then be 
a mutual modification of specific states of the 
same substance. 

5. Human thought is an effect of a natural 
cause, as all other effects in nature are. 

All what is perceptible by human senses 
is subject to methodical critical observation 
under the same given conditions and is part of 
natur e,&n& is thus subject to being ascertained 
by human investigation. And what is not 
perceptible to human senses and is not subject 
to methodical critical observation under re- 
peated given conditions and what therefore is 
not part of nature is called supernatural. 

In consequence the dividing line, between 
natural and supernatural theorems, is a well 
defined one. Natural theorems can be 
proven to the satisfaction of a large overwhelm- 
| ing majority of those having stored within 
I them what mainly constitutes human know- 
ledge concerning the subject matter under con- 
1 sideration, such proofs resulting from the 
observation by our senses of natural facts and 
from methodical conclusion based thereon. 
And such proof can be repeated with the ob- 
tainable conditions therefor methodically pre- 
pared. 



— 40 — 

Supernatural theorems can not be proven 
by actual repeatable observation, but they 
must be accepted if at all, on the basis of his- 
torical events, claimed to be true and to be 
correctly represented, and on the authority of 
records concerning such events as prepared by 
men not as yet gifted with the modern capabil- 
ity of methodical observation and investiga- 
tion and inclined with'the balance of humanity 
of their time, to attribute to the supernatural 
all, they as yet did not understand to be part 
and parcel of the activity of observable 
natural things and forces. 

A difference further lies in the fact, that 
the knowledge of natural facts does not claim 
anything but what can be ascertained to the 
satisfaction of human observation, while it is 
claimed in favor of the supernatural, that con- 
cerning it we have, as an act of voluntary sub- 
mission of our intellect, to accept what the in- 
tellect cannot understand, and that the capabil- 
ity of such submission be a gift (grace with 
catholics, etc.,) from divinity, which divinity 
is accepted to be in nature and to fill space 
and to possess the faculty to become at times 
observable to our senses or of which as the 
thought (logical expression of thought) the 
universe is the body.* 

*Part of the present exposition was written by tn© 



I 



— 41 — 

It is thus clear, that the difference between 
natural and supernatural theorems consists 
mainly in the possibility on the one hand of 
ascertaining/ac^ with regard to natural sub- 
ject matter, while with regard to supernatural 
theorems on the other hand we possess no 
such possibility but the liberty for assuming 
only. 

One of the main supernatural questions 
we all feel highly interested in, is that, as to 
whether on the total cessation of organic ac- 
tivity in our body and while that body is re- 
dissolving into the chemical elements and com- 
pounds of which its organic structure was 
built up, and when the totality called our indi- 
viduality and personality is either totally fall- 
ing apart, or if kept together by artificial means, 
no longer partakes as such in the movement 
and changes of substances as pertaining to 
the life of the body, whether then permanently 
or temporarily, separate from said dead body 
or from the natural elements, which constitute 
it, another different or separate individuality, 
not being subject to methodical observation 
and not subject to the law, that two different 



same author in connection with some literary work con- 
nected with an American edition of the celebrated book 
on the human body in sickness (Pathology) by Dr. C. E. 
Bock. 



— 42 — 

and separate substances cannot fill the same 
space, and not subject to the law of gravity, 
does continue to exist. 

The science treating on natural subjects con- 
fesses, that it does not be within its possibil- 
ities, to either affirmatively or negatively an- 
swer this question (agnosco). That in conse- 
quence it has no opinion in the premises, and 
that indeed the question is no part of the sci- 
ence of natural things, but that the science 
about supernatural questions, theology name- 
ly, has been striving since the earliest times in 
the history of mankind, to settle thisquestion 
with the result, that as a matter of teaching 
on supernatural subjects the plurality of man- 
kind does believe such individuality to con- 
tinue in existence. 

Another main point at issue between theol- 
ogians (claiming to know) on the one hand 
and agnostics (claiming not to know) on the 
other hand, is expressed in the question, as 
to whether natural evolution (Darwinism) does 
sufficiently (rationally) account for life and 
consciousness, or whether the event of the 
first step to evolution does not remain unac- 
counted for, and whether this unexplained 
first fact in serial evolution does not consti- 
tute the bridge between naturalism and super- 
naturalism, and the selection lies in this case 



— 43 — 

between the proud claim of authority and the- 
modest confession of ignorance.* 

Each human individual develops the faculty" 
to make distinction between its own individ- 
uality and the totality of surrounding nature 
through its own sensual perception, such per- 
ception being limited in time and quantity, to 
the period of existence of the individual, and 
whichever knowledge the individual may ac 
quire of facts preceding its own existence in 
time is in all cases a matter first of intellectual 
transmission and second of comparison. That 
humanity should not possess the faculty of 
understanding the primitive origin of all nat- 
ural things is self evident, men being a part 
only of nature, and in consequence unable of 
consciousness beyond the limits of natural 
things. 

Therefore what no man possessed the faculty 
of perceiving and understanding could not be 
truly revealed by one man to another. 

Nevertheless from the time, when man 
first began to make the distinction between 
himself and his surroundings, different beliefs 
and creeds have taken possession of the human 
mind as the result of assumed revelation. 

But the methodically and critically observ- 



* The question as to the controversy between * Genesis' 7 
and " Evolution " will be referred to further on. 



— 44 — 

ing man of the present age is not satisfied to 
accept all as true, what has been a part and 
parcel of the belief of his ancestors, simply 
because he has by actual observation and test 
ascertained a great part of such belief to have 
been and to be error, contrary to fact and im- 
possible. And as a result a considerable part 
of present humanity doubts all, that cannot be 
proven. 

And it is admitted by all men having en- 
joyed a non-sectarian education and intellec- 
tual training: 

That the exclusive and sole possible proof 
for any supernatural theorem must be looked 
for within the limits of intercourse (communi- 
cation) between the supernatural and natural. 
Communication from the supernatural to the 
natural, being then called revelation, and from 
the natural to the supernatural being called 
prayer. 

At the same degree, as we have succeeded 
in preparing and perfecting tools and instru- 
ments, by which the observations and percep- 
tions of our senses are aided, at the same rate 
we have drawn into the realm of natural 
things, and facts subjects therefore belonging 
to the number of supernatural mysteries. 

What a few centuries ago we would have 
considered as witchcraft, our courts punish- 



— 45 — 

ing it with the penalty of death, we now pay 
for having it done before our eyes in the way 
of entertainment and amusement. 

But if in this manner anything is presented 
to us, which is observable to our senses, but 
which is claimed to be supernatural, such pres- 
entation is a fraud on its face, because our 
senses are totally lacking all capability beyond 
receiving impressions from natural causes* 
and whatever beat the time of observation not 
clearly the effect of a natural cause, will on 
methodical observation prove to be so, and the 
cause for doubt only lies in the insufficient or in 
the unmethodical manner of observation. In 
the history of early humanity almost all, that 
man could not eat and drink, and because 
methodical observation was as yet not part of 
human faculties — was by men set apart as 
belonging to the supernatural. Intellectual 
laziness being then, as it is now, an essential 
quality of humanity at large, it results there- 
from, that by the masses real knowledge about 
natural things is but very, very slowly ab- 
sorbed, while these masses willingly accept on 
the basis of authorities to them quoted and 
against them claimed and without any trouble 
to them of intellectual labor, a great quantity 
of theorems relating to supernatural subjects, 
the quality of theorems varying considerably 



— 48 — 

under tlie influence of surroundings, company, 
individual interest, ambition, vanity, pride, 
ancestors, tradition, habit etc., etc. 

All human creeds originate in the accep- 
tance of revelations. Therefore no creed can 
possibly be proven (as a mathematical theo- 
rem can,) by intellectual construction only, 
unless the existence, ^nature and correctness 
of revelation be accepted on the basis of a 
record thereof based on the perception, (cer- 
tainly not infallible) of one or an other human 
individual, whose authority in the premises is 
based in all cases without any exception on 
the individual's own statement concerning 
said revelation, which may be supported or 
brought about by favorable coincidences. 

It is this the aid (revelation) your Eminence 
refers to as the human reason being in need of, 
in your utterance on page 803: 

If the ideas of time and space and the rela- 
tion of soul to body are beyond our compre- 
hension, we cannot be expected with our un- 
aided reason to explain away the apparent 
incongruities that we find between the unseen 
and the visible kingdom of the universe. 

Your Eminence virtually admits all, what 
has been hereabove stated as to the limits to 
human faculties. But the fact is, that agnos- 
tics ask to be excused from accepting such aid, 
for which the support of proof is lacking, as 



— 47 — 

for the supernatural {unseen) kingdom of the 
universe it does. 

After your Eminence has quoted on numer- 
ous pages so-called evidences for the existence 
of God, such as many thousands more of 
pages might have been filled with to the same 
purpose, your Eminence raises the question: 

How, then, are we to account for this moral 
unanimity of mankind in acknowledging a 
Supreme Being? There is but one rational 
solution to be given, which may be thus briefly 
expressed: God enlightens with the light of 
reason every man that cometh into the world. 
Guided by that light, we recognize the Creator 
from the contemplation of His works. We 
naturally and without effort of mind, associ- 
ate the Architect toith the temple of nature 
luminously standing before us, Just as the 
human voice sounding in our ears, is associ- 
ated in our mind with a speaker hidden from 
our view. How can our soul listen in silent 
wonder to the heavenly music of the spheres, 
without admiring the divine Composer ? We 
cannot separate the Builder from His work. 
We cannot admire the masterpiece without 
bestowing a thought on the great Artist. The 
connection is inseparable. The invisible 
Author is "clearly seen, being understood by 
the things that are made." 1 



— 48 

Your Eminence among other expressions has 
the following: We recognize the Creator from 
the contemplation of his toorlc. 

Now modern scientists contemplate nature 
which is probably the same as your Eminence 
designates by the expression/ 4 His work," and 
the result of their contemplation is, that there 
be naught in nature resembling to suddenness 
of creation. All appears as the result of grad- 
ual evolution. And in contemplating nature 
the scientist has only a smile of pity for the 
infantile imagination of early humanity, as- 
suming on the authority of revelation a crea- 
tion of ready made light (day), and darkness 
(night), and of a firmament dividing the waters 
above and below, and of land in one place and 
water in the other place (under the firmament) 
and of grass,herb and fruit tree,and later on of 
the sun and the moon, to divide the day from 
the night, and the stars also, and the fish and 
the birds and cattle and amphibies and then 
man (male and female), this being the creative 
order of Genesis which Genesis somewhat in- 
fringes upon by reserving the creation of the 
female again for another occasion, when the 
Creator discovered, that it be not good, that 
the male should be alone. 

The entire story bears so evidently the mark 
of intellectual babydom, that the modern crit- 



— 49 — 

ical intellect knows of no greater marvel than 
that mankind stuck to the faiiy tale, as long 
as it has, and that the human mind even at 
this date can be warped by education, sur- 
roundings, vanity, ambition, worldly interests 
and fanaticism to the extent of combiningintel- 
lectual training with fanatical obstinacy in 
maintaining belief in a recital, which evi- 
dently is nothing but the product of an un- 
scrupulous storyteller of no more advanced 
views, than the people were, to whom the story 
first was told — a recital, the author of which 
was evidently totally ignorant of the fact, that 
the earth be one of the minor bodies in the 
universe, but who in his ignorance assumed 
it to be the very part thereof for the benefit of 
which later on all the rest were made, an idea 
so utterly in conflict with our present knowl- 
edge of things, that, if blasphemy is a possible 
thing, it is certainly a blasphemy to let divin- 
ity reveal such arrant nonsense. 
Then your Eminence continues: 
By the same light of reason, we see alsa 
within us a moral law written on our hearts. 
We perceive an essential difference between 
right and wrong, good and evil, virtue and 
nice. From the recognition of this universal 
law, we inevitably vnfer a universal Law- 
giver. We hear a voice within us judging 
us, commending or condemning us; and from 



1 



50 — 






the imperious judgment pronounced upon us, 
we conclude that there exists a Sovereign Judge. 

And thus God reveals Himself to us as our 
Creator, as our Lawgiver, as our Judge. As 
our Creator, He manifests Himself to us by 
His Works. As our Lawgiver, He speaks to 
us by His law written on our hearts. As our 
Judge, He speaks to us by the voice of con- 
science. We apprehend Him by our reason, 
our moral sense, and our conscience. And, 
therefore, as long as man continues to exer- 
cise his intellectual and moral faculties, so 
long will he profess his faith in the exist- 
ence of a living God. 

Here your Eminence assumes as proven what 
is yet to be proven. The reason of agnostics 
does not thus see the heart, nor a law written 
on it, but is fully aware of the fact, that con- 
science is a matter of education, that what to 
one class of men is right is wrong to another 
and vice versa. The followers of Ignatius de 
Loyola as a theological school have laid out 
quite different moral laws than the followers 
of Jansenius did. The Mohammedans have 
other moral laws than the Christians and so 
on. And conscience in consequence proves to 
be a very flexible article with humanity in gen- 
eral, our daily experience even with ardent 
christians teaching us, that they as a rule ap- 
preciate conscience very highly in their neigh- 
bors but do not give evidence of such high ap- 



— 51 — 

preciation thereof in themselves. Different 
classes of men and different nations have dif- 
ferent notions about morals, and by your Em- 
inence's theorem we would logically have to 
come to the conclusion, that there be more 
" Supreme Lawgivers" than one, which your 
Eminence did certainly not intend. 

But assuming for the sake of argument all 
what your Eminence states to be true, what 
does all of this prove in favor of a "knowl- 
edge of the Supernatural." To the best 
it can prove only, that by a voluntary act 
of assumption we may be led to accept, 
what our intellect has no faculty to conceive. 

And there is nothing in all this more in 
favor of Christianity than of Buddhism, and 
again your Eminence asserts on page 252, that 
"the divine mission of Christ is demonstrated 
by the marvelous propagation and perpetuity 
of the Christian religion". If permanence and 
a striking approach to universality on the 
part of a creed are proofs of a divine origin, 
may they not be invoked on behalf of Buddh- 
ism, which started some five centuries earlier 
than Christianity, and includes among its 
votaries a much larger fraction of the human 
race than the Roman Catholic Church or even 
Christianity at large, there being known to 
exist on the surface of our globe : 500,000,000 



— 52 — 

Buddhists; 160,000,000 Hindus ; 155,000,000 
Mohammedans; 80,000,000 Confucians; 14,- 
000,000 adherents of Shintoism (in Japan)- 
7,000,000 Jews; of Christians there are 152,- 
000,000 Roman Catholics; 75,000,000 Greek 
Catholics; 100,000,000 other Christians ; and 
about 157,000,000 of non-descripts. It thus 
appears, that only about one human being in 
every ten is a member of the Roman Church, 
not even deducting those, who are so by out- 
ward appearance only, while even amongst 
Christians they can count not one on every 
other one being non-Roman and scarcely two 
on every one Israelite notwithstanding a mil- 
lenium of persecution of Rome against Israel. 

It would bring the present letter beyond 
what "the busy restless class" would take in, 
jvere I to prolong the refutation in special of 
your Eminence's proofs of harmony between 
science and revelation. Suffice it to say, 
that, though the human heart may at times 
yearn for a power stronger than man to find 
refuge and support with, such yearning proves 
naught in favor of revelation. 

Of all the Revelations, the boldest, as faras 
the human intellect be concerned, is undoubted- 
ly the book "Genesis", of which Moses, the 
leader of Israelites on their return to Asia 
Minor, is the author. 



- 53 — 

And all what scientists had to show in evi- 
dence of an absolute human origin of this 
book namely, that it contained : 

1. many facts, of which Moses had no knowl- 
edge and could have none. 

2. many facts, of which the one set is in con- 
tradiction with the other set. 

3. many facts, of which it can be proven, by 
what is within human knowledge about nat- 
ural things, that they are not true or to be the 
reverse of truth or to be impossible. 

All this your Eminence calls: "childish 
declamation" applying the qualification to 
Messrs. Huxley and Draper directly. 

I omit qualifying such expressions, they do 
this themselves even before the most simple 
minded. And is your Eminence really in ear- 
nest in claiming, that these men should be hin : 
dered from publishing the result of their re- 
searches by gratitude towards their predeces- 
sors on the path of research. Besides do they 
not believe, that their predecessors could not 
possibly have uttered the same results and 
convictions, had they arrived at them? 

With the blood of hundreds of thousands 
has humanity conquered the freedom of con- 
science against inquisition, persecution and 
death, wielded against those indulging in such 
"childish declamation" as to assert that 



— 54 — 

REVELATION BE A SHAM. 

Your Eminence notwithstanding these 
"childish declamations", on which of old there 
was the penalty of death, then deliberately and 
solemnly undertakes to prove that ''there will- 
never be any collision, but the most perfect 
harmony will ever exist between science and 
religion" And th£n your Eminence con- 
tinues to declaim about God, the source of 
science and truth, such as Christianity de- 
fends it, as if "revelation" itself were an 
accepted fact, and as if your Eminence had 
already rendered proof of what had yet to be 
proven. 

It is this a result only of the sophistical 
audacity, with which nothing is called "rea- 
son" but what will reason out the theorems, 
as the church teaches them. 

And the rabiate dictum "that is {this mate- 
rial world) shall have an end" (page 305), this 
contradiction in total of all the results of natu- 
ral science, is quoted in proof, of how the church 
stands on the side of reason. And the reason 
of all scientists, who were once deeply steeped 
in Christianity is relegated to incompetency 
by the quotation from Paul: "It is morally 
impossible" says Paul, "for those who were 
once illuminated by faiths who have tasted.* 
also the heavenly gift, who were made par- 



-55- 

takers of the Holy Ghost, and who have 
fallen away by apostacy, to return once more 
to the faith of their athers." 

This is certainly true, because human reason 
once advanced to emancipation from supersti- 
tion and intellectual bondage cannot well re- 
turn to them, unless insanity should benumb 
its natural faculties. But this fact certainly 
proves naught in favor of such superstition 
and intellectual bondage. With all this your 
Eminence's persistent attempt to harmonize 
so-called revelation (the church) with the ac- 
knowledged results of science, is identical with 
explaining away the Church's former teach- 
ings as soon as research has succeeded to 
produce incontrovertable proof to the con- 
trary. 

We are told for instance, on page 313, that 
"it is often erroneously assumed, that Scrip- 
tures propound doctrines, which they never 
professed to teach. The sacred volume was 
not intended by its divine author to give us a 
scientific treatise on astronomy or cosmogony 
or geology », or even a complete series of chro- 
nology or genealogy. These matters are inci- 
dentally introduced to illustrate a higher sub- 
ject. The purpose of the Scriptures is to re- 
count God? s supernatural relations with man- 
kind, his providential government of the 
worlds and man's moral obligation to his 
Creator" 



— 56 — 

It is not so long ago, when the church as- 
sumed the authority to settle scientific ques- 
tions of astronomy, cosmogony and geology 
on the very contrary claim to your Eminence's 
assertion hereabove quoted, namely, that the 
true source for all human knowledge be the 
Eible (the word of the Lord) and the Roman 
Church's interpretation thereof. But your 
Eminence may permit the undersigned to fol- 
low your Eminence's endeavors to explain 
awa y the position formerly held by the Roman 
Churcb. 

Your Eminence proceeding to a particular 
example states: 

"When for instance the Sacred Text de- 
clares, that the sun stood still in the heavens, 
it simply gives expression to the miraculous 
prolongation of the day ; and this in popular 
language, such as even now, with our im- 
proved knowledge of astronomy, we employ, 
for we speak of the rising and the setting of 
the sun as if, according to the Ptolemaic sys- 
tem, we still believed, that he revolves around 
the earth" . 

But your Eminence does omit to state, that 

this very method of expressing contrary to 
facts in our daily intercourse is only one of the 
many consequences of the Church sustaining, 
favoring, upholding absolutely erroneous 
teachings. What a hard fight with the church 



— 57 - 

or its followers have Copernicus, Kepler and 
Galileo had in trying to disabuse humanity 
of this very error! Kepler's book "Epitome 
of the Copernican Astronomy" was on ap- 
pearance (1622) placed on the list of prohib- 
ited books by the Congregation of the index 
at Rome. 

Kepler's biographer, Sir David Brewster, M. 
A., D. C. L., states p. 223 of " Martyrs of Sci- 
ence," "the moment Kepler learned this from 
Ms correspondent Remus, he was thrown 
into great alarm, and requested from him 
some information respecting the terms and 
consequences of the censure, which was thus 
pronounced upon his work. He was afraid, 
that it might compromise his personal safety, 
if he went to Italy; — that he might be com- 
pelled to retract his opinions; — that the cen- 
sure might extend to Austria-, — that the sale 
of his work would be ruined; and that he 
must either abandon his country or his 
opinions. 

And with all this vour Eminence claims 
under the caption: "The Church is the true 
friend and promoter of science" for the Ro- 
man Church the honor belonging to those 
men, saying (page 311): It is to Coperni- 
cus, a priest, and Canon, that the world is 
indebted for the discovery of the planetary 
revolutions around the sun. 



— 58 — 

And your Eminence states (page 309): At no 
'period of the OhurcK s history did she wield 
greater authority than from the twelfth to the 
sixteenth century. She exercised not only 
spiritual but also temporal power, and she had 
great influence with the princes of Christen- 
dom;" and (p. 310): At no time did the hu- 
man intellect revel in greater freedom' ' . And 
yet during this period (1100 to 1600) absolute- 
ly no progressive step was made in the knowl- 
edge of Nature; it being indeed the period of 
astrology and alchemy only, no other freedom 
existing than the freedom to believe as the 
Roman Church taught; and during these cen 
turies of Aristotelic scholastic philosophy there 
occurred: the crusade against the Albigenses 
(heretics), the great revolt against Roman sup- 
pression of liberty of conscience, since then 
called the Protestant Reformation, the burn- 
ing of Huss and the wars for the suppression 
of Protestantism in Germany. 

And yet it is true, that only simultaneously 
with the shaking off by humanity of the Roman 
bondage in matters of religion, the human in- 
tellect did sufficiently reawaken (humanists) 
to attempt progress in the matter of natural 
science (Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo), and that 
no sooner was this attempt made, but the 
Roman Church attempted to call a "Halt", to 



— 59 — 

such progress by Inquisition and persecution;. 

Passing over from Astronomy to Geology 
your Eminence has the following (page 314): 

"The results of geological investigation* 
by which it is claimed, that ages must have 
elapsed between the formation of matter and 
the creation of man, would seem to conflict 
with the Boole of Genesis, which states, that 
all vegetable and animal life was created with- 
in the space of six days. But the Church, as 
is well known, has never defined the meaning 
to be attached to those days of Genesis. We 
are at liberty, as far as the Church is con- 
cerned, and if the deductions of science are 
incontrovertible, we are compelled to ascribe 
an indefinite period of years to each day. 
The context itself insinuates, that the day 
cannot be restricted to twenty four hours r 
since, for the first three days, there was no 
sun to measure their duration: and in the 
second chapter of Genesis the word day i& 
manifestly used to express an indefinite 
veriod of time employed in the creation of 
the material universe". 

Your Eminence's statement, that "the con- 
text itself 'insinuates', that the day cannot be 
restricted to twenty four hours, even for the 
first three days, since for the first three days, 
there was no sun to measure their duration 
by can be accounted for only by the easy going, 
futile method, with which your Eminence 



— 60 — 

deals with, great scientific questions in con- 
trast with the intense care bestowed on ex- 
plaining away doubts as to the correctness of 
Genesis, but the claim thus made cannot be 
advanced in sincerity, when Genesis specifi- 
cally states: 

"And God called the light DAY and the 
darkness NIGHT." > 

"And the evening and the morning were the 
first day" ' . 

And again: 

(I. 16) "And God made two great lights, the 
greater light to rule the day and the lesser 
light to rule the night; He made the stars also". 

And yet, it is not the sun, by which the (si- 
deral, uniform) day is measured One revo- 
lution (return of the same point on the earth- 
ball to the same location relative to the universe 
measures the uniform day . Genesis says nothing 
about the ball being set a rolling later on. So 
it must be assumed that ''Genesis" intended to 
reveal, that the Lord set the ball a rolling on 
the day of creation, and then there was the 
condition given to measure the day by. But the 
fact in the premises is, that the Roman Church 
has forcibly receded now from the position of 
claiming to possess in Bible (the so called word 
of the Lord) and in apostolic tradition the ex- 
clusive source for all truth and science. That 
much has been decidedly gained, and it is im- 



' 






— 61 — 

possible for the Roman Church to now cover 
up its own tracks. 

Besides your Eminence is well aware, that 
the objections of scientists to the teaching of 
Genesis do not turn merely or mainly rest on 
the duration of the epoch signified by the 
Hebrew word translated 4i day", but relate 
rather to the order, in which several creative 
processes are said to have taken place. 

Your Eminence asserts that "the chronologi- 
cal order of Moses is borne out by the re- 
searches of geologists, who have discovered, 
that vegetable fossils are anterior to animal 
remains, and that those of the lower animals 
are more ancient than those of any human 
skeletons ever found } \ 

Wow this order as described in Genesis, is 
not so unconditionally admitted, as your Em- 
inence claims it to be. Natural Science has 
wiped out altogether the division lines be- 
tween the vegetable and animal kingdom, the 
two being so much blended one with the other, 
that but for the reverence to bible and habit, 
the distinction would be obsolete altogether. 
It would have been more to the point, had 
your Eminence taken up the scriptural asser- 
tions one after the other and explained some 
of their inconsistencies with the universally 
accepted conclusions of scientists. We read 
in Genesis, for instance, that the earth, one 



— 62 — 

of the least considerable of the planets, was 
created on the first "day", and the snn, the 
center of the system, to which the earth belongs, 
on the fourth day, but that light preceded 
the sun for " three days", that vegetable life 
was brought forth at a date anterior to the 
existence of solar light and heat. Again we 
read, that winged fowl were brought forth on 
the "day" preceding that, on which creeping 
things or reptiles were created, although, if 
anything be considered an established fact in 
natural history, it is, that without the sun 
and his weight, combustion and light, 
there be no earth-globe moving and condition- 
ed as our globe is, — and that without the 
presence of heat and light no vegetable life 
could exist such as Genesis reveals it anterior 
to the existence of the sun, and that reptiles 
preceded birds. These are the crucial points 
in the record of Genesis, which cannot be rec- 
onciled with the results of scientific research, 
and which leave Genesis in error and in con- 
sequence as of human authorship. 

Again your Eminence in the 19th chapter, 
bearing the caption, "Origin and Destiny 
of Man as viewed by Modern Unbelief," 
with great assurance denies two things : 
first, that mankind be descended from the 
lower animals, or, to speak more specifically, 



— 63 — 

from anthropoid apes; second, that species be 
produced by variation and adaptation to en- 
vironment under the law of natural selection 
instead of being each the outcome of an in- 
dependent act of creation. 

With regard to the repudiation of the 
theory, that mankind be descended from 
anthropoid apes, the physiologist will acknow- 
ledge, that the last link is as yet missing in 
the chain of evidence brought foward in sup- 
port of that conclusion. But, as up to a few 
years ago, a similar gap existed in the genea- 
logy of the horse, which has since been 
clearly filled, the same prudence practiced by 
Papacy on so many other occasions, where 
notwithstanding all the revelations the deci- 
sion was deferred or refused on account of 
the uncertainty of the ground, the church did 
stand on, may also in this case save to the 
Church the explicit necessity of again aban- 
doning a position once taken notwithstanding 
its claimed infallibility. 

In affirming the independent creation and 
immutability of species your Eminence dis- 
cards a belief, which now is universal 
among scientists. There is notwithstanding 
this denial on your Eminence's part no known 
man of science now living and enjoying the 
respect of his co-laborers, who rejects the fun- 



— 64 — 

damental principle of Darwinism, viz., that 
species are evolved by variation under the laws 
of natural selection. 

The real question at issue seems to be be- 
tween the Church and agnostics : Shall human- 
ity be deceived concerning what it would like 
to know but cannot know ? The church an- 
swers : I do not deceive, because I was told 
what I teach by revelation, which I believe to 
have told the truth. 

And agnostics answer : 

Those revelations are unproven and unprov- 
able, and there is suspicion, that they indeed 
were the product either of illusion and 
hallucination or of fraud right out. Hence 
we doubt, disbelieve and remain satisfied with 
believing only what can be proven. 



THIRD LETTER. 
On Miracles. 

Your Eminence 

May permit me to aver, that from the pre- 
ceding statement concerning the limits of 
human intellectual faculties it is evident, 
that, as man does not possess the possibility 
of ascertaining whatever be not part and par- 
cel of nature, it is likewise not in his faculty 
to ascertain the negative of any supernatural 
theorem, and as a consequence acceptance or 
refusal remains a matter of individual selec- 
tion. 

Atheists say: There is no Supreme Self con- 
scious Being either distinct from Nature or 
identical with it. 

Pantheists say: Nature and the Selfcon' 
scious Supreme Being are one. 

Both these philosophical schools are on 
the same side with Christianity in either 
asserting or denying what is beyond human 
knowledge. 



— 66 — 

Bat Agnostics say: We do not know 
but what is part of observable nature and that 
not all and beyond that nothing. Whenever 
man follows his selection and inclination 
in assuming one or another of the theorems ad- 
vanced concerning the so-called supernatural, 
whatever he may thus assume, can never 
become knowledge as the result of observa- 
tion by our senses, but will and must remain 
the product of a voluntary resolution to as- 
sume as true what can not be proven. All 
pretenses to the contrary are the results either 
of illogical construction or of distortion of 
facts. 

It being admitted, that all creeds (dogmas) 
relating to the supernatural or to Divinity 
and its qualities can find their justification 
only in revelation from the supernatural, 
but having shown at the same time, that it 
is beyond the human faculty to perceive the 
supernatural, it remains to consider the possi- 
bility or probability of a revelation from the 
supernatural taking the form of natural 
things and substances. Assuming, that such 
taking of a natural form by the supernatural 
be possible, then there are two ways, in 
which possibility may be assumed to evolve 
into a fact. 

The one alternate way assumed as possible 



' 



\ 



— 67 — 

would be the penetration of universal nature 
as such by the supernatural. 

In this assumed case all, what has been 
said with regard to nature, applies to the 
supernatural also, it having become identical 
with natural substance and having been 
proven to be subject to natural laws and to be 
observable by men, to the extent only of 
natural existence. 

The other alternate way assumed as possible 
would be the identification of the super- 
natural with selected, single, sporadic natural 
objects. 

And such identification of the second class 
is ordinarily claimed under the name of divine 
quality in otherwise human beings or of mira- 
cle as the substance of revelation, on which 
creeds are based and built. 

In accordance therewith your Eminence 
gives the assurance (page 240) that miracles 
have always been justly regarded as the most 
luminous and convincing evidence in support 
of the doctrines they confirm, and this certain- 
ly would be so, were it not for the peculiar 
state of affairs, that since humanity acquired 
the faculty of methodical observation and 
tests, all miracles have ceased, or have been 
relegated and confined to remote parts, far 
away from civilization, as in the case of re- 



— 68 — ■ 

cent beatifications. And none of those on 
record can be repeated. And snch records 
as exist of miracles, when subjected to crit- 
ical investigation, have invariably proven 
insufficient to substantiate the facts. 

And the records of the most miraculous of 
all miracles, the creation of the universe as 
recorded in Moses's' book "Genesis" has 
been proven to be contradictory in itself, and 
the next thereto, the taking of human indi- 
vidual shape of a tripartite interest in 
divinity itself, is seriously menaced in its 
credit by the non-existence of secular proof of 
the existence at any time or anywhere of 
the individual so referred to. 

But the Roman Church carries the use she 
makes of miracles far beyond this. The Ro- 
man Church claims, that every one of her 
l>riests on every day of the year, when cele- 
brating mass, accomplishes the miracle of con- 
verting a wafer into a piece of a humanized 
tripartite personal interest in divinity, and 
w r hen we agnostics say : We cannot see it, then 
the Roman Church says : " You need not see 
it, you must believe iV ' . 

And we agnostics say : Even admitting the 
existence of an all-powerful, all-wise and all- 
charitable Supreme Being and Divinity, must 
we believe, that Its entire relation to poor hu~ 



~* 69 

manity be the one as between a trickster and 
liis victims, — in giving us an intellect, which 
cannot understand and must doubt and deny 
such things to be — and in demanding of us at 
the same time under penalty of eternal dam- 
nation, that we shall vilify what it is our na- 
ture to hold most highly, the to us given intel- 
lect namely, by believing what we know not 
to be and even know to be impossible? 

If there be blasphemy anywhere, such an 
assumption would be blasphemy, and not the 
agnostics do commit it, but they make use of 
their best of possession, of their intellect 
namely, and they enjoy its use, this being better 
gratitude than which no donor ever received. 

With all this the distinction should be made 
as between a believer on the testimony of 
miracles and a believer without miracles. 

He, who requires miracles in order to be- 
lieve, is an old fashioned agnostic of a lower 
intellectual order, because, when he imagined 
he saw a miracle, his infantile intellect ac- 
cepted such miracle as proof, and he believed 
in consequence. 

In order to completely carry out the doc- 
trine, that to believe be a virtue and the result 
of divine grace, a dogma of the Roman Church, 
to which I shall be compelled to again refer 
later on, it would appear more consistent in 






— 70 — ■ 

the Roman Church, not even to point to mira- 
cles in support of her faith. As to this 
Mohammet did take a mojre correct position, be- 
cause in Chapter XIII. (near the end) of the 
Kor&n he quotes the following as to him re- 
vealed by the Lord: 

"Though a Kor&n were revealed, by which 
mountains should be removed, or the earth 
cleaved in sunder, or the dead be caused to 
speak, it would be in vairt ' . 

It is thus, that Mohammet could dispense 
with miracles and nevertheless demand, 
"faith" on the part of his followers; and he 
formulated this demand in the same chapter 
as follows: 

"To this purpose have we sent down the 
Kor&n a rule of judgment". 

The Roman Church nevertheless has con- 
tinued to claim miracles, the records on beat- 
ification* bristling with their recital. And 
even in modern times such things as tha 
motion of the eyes of the picture of the 



d Beatification is a solemn judgment of the Church, de- 
claring that persons dying after a most exemplary life, or 
put to death in hatred of the faith, by whose intercession 
with God, after death, well authenticated miracles have 
been performed, enjoy eternal happiness in heaven. The 
Pontiff, therefore,allow8 these blessed personages to receive 
certain honors and homage in the diocese, in whicft they 
were born, or in the religious orders to which they belonged 



— 71 — 

Virgin at Siena and the apparition of the 
Virgin in the tree at Lourdes have been sup- 
ported in their credit by the clergy of the 
Roman Church. And it is generally believed, 
that the time has come, when it may be con- 
sidered as opportune, that the Virgin make 
her appearance somewhere on this continent, 
so as to prepare for an object of pilgrimage, 
the practice thereof having always been essen- 
tially a practice of the Roman Church, the 
same materially contributing towards the in- 
tensity of faith in the minds of the pilgrims 
and giving an outlet to the fervor of all desi- 
rous of becoming connected with some mira- 
culous event. 

In fact, miracles have been claimed by the 
Roman Church to such an extent, that a reac- 



in life, or within the limits of the country where they lived 
and died. 

Canonization, on tiie contrary, declares, in a still more 
solemn and final form, the heroic saintliness of life, or the 
heroic witness borne to Christ by torments or death en- 
dured for His sake; and attests at the same time the won- 
derful miracles wrought by a saint's intercession with the 
Almighty. This final sentence of canonization, by placing 
the names of the persons canonized on the canon or cata- 
logue of the saints, extends the honor and homage due 
them to the universal Church. This sentence enjoins all 
Catholics to reverence and honor the persons, whose sancti- 
ty is thus proclaimed by the supreme authority of the 
Church.— [Bernard O'Reilly, N. Y. Sun, Dec. 15, 1889.] 



— 72 — 

tion must result. x\s a consequence reasoning 
humanity shrunk back from them, and it is at 
present rather highly appreciated by the com- 
mon mortal, that so little is seen of tliem, and 
this is attributed to skepticism as to their very 
existence. 

Since the test of methodical observation has 
in this matter done away with illusions, hallu- 
cinations, false pretences, miracles tne not 
easily indulged in either by saints before 
or after their death, or by other common 
mortals, except by the irrepressible spirit- 
ualists, who notwithstanding the manifold 
exposures of intentional fraud on the part 
of their mediums, continue this trade of 
deception, and indeed the Roman Church 
must be congratulated to have nothing in 
common with them not even miracles. ^W/iat 
fools these mortals be" to have accepted mir- 
acles at all in the way they have done. 



FOURTH LETTER. 

The Real Position of the Roman Catholic 
Church Towards Agnosticism in 
Contrast With Cardinal 
Gibbons' Attempt to 
Prove the Super- 
natural. 

Your Eminence 

May permit, that it be assumed for the 
sake of argument, that an agnostic by the 
reading of your Eminence's book had become 
convinced, first of the existence of the super- 
, natural and of the Supreme Being as the \ elf- 
conscious creator of (he universe, second of 
the immortality of the human soul, third of 
the divinity of Christ, fourth of the Roman 
Pontifex being the true represenfntive of 
Christ on earth, and of the Roman Church 
possessing the real and true teachings of 
Christ. 



— 74 — 

Would with all this he have become a Roman 
Catholic, in full harmony with the teachings 
of the Roman Church? Inconceivable as this 
may appear on the face of the assertion, your 
Eminence knows, that then as yet he should 
not be a true Roman Catholic, and why not? 
Simply because it is heresy, according to the 
Roman Church, that'the true catholic's faith 
be the result of intellectual conclusion,* or 
that intellectual conclusion alone be the proper 
basis for such creed, while the virtue of faith 
is thought to be such proper basis and a gift 
from divine grace. Thus were a hundred thou- 
sand agnostics ready as a consequence of your 
Eminence's persuasion to abandon agnosticism, 
because their intellects had been led by your 
Eminence to conclusions otherwise in harmo- 
ny with the teachings of the Roman Church, 
your Eminence would before admitting them 
have to demandas the agent of the Church the 
abjuration on their part of their faith being 
the exclusive result of their intellectual labors, 
and your Eminence would have to demand 
the acknowledgement on their part, that their 
belief and faith be founded in divine grace t 
and not on their own intellectual labors. 



* Reference is made to the decrees setting the books of 
Prof. Hermes on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum as 
containing heresy and to other evidence to the same effect 



— 75 ~ 

In other words the agnostic can enter the" 
fold of the Roman Church only as a matter of 
choice, selection and inclination and not as a 
matter of intellectual conclusion, the agnostic 
by a voluntary act assuming to have been en- 
dowed (as if by an unprovable supernatural 
power, enchantment) with the grace of faith. 

Strange as it may appear, divinity does not 
bestow such grace on agnostics as a rule, and 
your Eminence should therefore feel rather 
pity with these disfavored mortals, and it 
would be more rational and more charitable, if 
your Eminence would have words of kind- 
ness and of amiable persuasion for them in- 
stead of rational reasoning, which by the de- 
crees of the church can do them no good, and 
of rebukes and accusation, which are not 
founded on fact. 

And is it not giving an evidence of weak- 
ness of your Eminence's cause to attempt to 
convince the intellectually untrained, while 
the professionals in the matter of philosophy 
and research are met with the declaration, that 
they should be considered as Tiors du combat. 

It thus happens, that the undersigned 
"raises the claim of more truly defining the 
road to Roman Catholicism in special or to or- 
thodoxy in general, than your Eminence has 
defined it in the book on "Our Christian Her- 
itage. 5 ' 



— 76 — 

Let the membership of any orthodox creed 
•community be a matter of selection, inclina- 
tion and of the welfare of the people at large, 
rather than to attempt to convince (since vio- 
lence is no longer applicable), by reasoning 
out theorems being beyond the conception of 
liuman reason. Let religion be a matter of 
sentiment and of charity rather than of dog- 
ma and intellect. 

Theologians should abandon their disputes 
as to creeds, but stand squarely on the funda- 
mental assertion, that the one amongst all 
creeds and religious communities be the most 
acceptable, by which the happiness (harmony 
with surrounding nature), of the individual in 
special and humanity in general be best pro- 
moted. 

It is on the basis as stated that all confessions 
'canact in unity of purpose, namely of increas- 
ing human happiness by mutual charity with- 
in the limits of reason and equity. 

Whether it be the Roman Catholic Church, 
by which the happiness of the North American 
citizen and people be best protected and pro- 
moted, will be a matter of consideration of my 
seventh letter to be directed to your Emi- 
nence. 






FIFTH LETTER. 

Different Methods of Propagating the 

Roman Catholic Faith under 

Different Circumstances. 

Your Eminence 

Creeds, being practically amongst the human: 
race a matter of surrounding influences and 
of individual inclinations, are essentially a 
matter of individual right also to the extent 
of non-interference with the equal right of all 
other human individuals, and to the limit as 
far as so-called religious practices are con- 
cerned, of non-intrusion on the equal welfare 
of others. As a consequence thereof the gov- 
ernment of worldly affairs violates the equal 
rights of one part of living humanity by favor- 
ing the creed of another part, and no govern- 
ment can be a just government to all citizens, 
unless it be totally and absolutely disconnect- 
ed from any and all creeds, while it may regu- 
late by law on the basis of equality the rela- 



— 78 — 

tions of creed communities to natural things 
(Persons and property). 

And all creeds being based either on assump- 
tions with regard to supernatural theorems or 
on the assertions of individual men (or women) 
as to communications received from the un- 
proven supernatural realm, no creed can 
claim an absolute rational proof for the neces- 
sity of being accepted by humanity at large. 
Their legitimate medium of propagation should 
therefore bs persuasion alone. 

It is on this basis, that all confessions can 
live in peace and can begin the millenium of 
human happiness free of fanatismand hatred, 
where every human being be conscious of the 
purpose of its own existence and life and of 
that of all others, namely: to promote the hap- 
piness of all. 

The Roman Church, it is true, claims, that 
mankind should mind happiness during nat- 
ural life as naught in comparison with an 
eventual happiness hereafter, and that she is 
the church, through the medium of which ex- 
clusively such eventual happiness hereafter 
can be secured, all of which claim she bases on 
1 'revelation' ' and ' 'miracle in evidence thereof. ' ' 
But as neither one nor the other has been 
proven, it is but reasonable, that mankind 
should prefer happiness during natural life to 



— 79 — 

eventual happiness in supernatural life. The 
history of mankind nevertheless is evidence of 
human tendency to use brutal powerand phy- 
sical compulsion for the propagation of faith. 

If (on page 268) your Eminence asserts: 
The church draws no sword to enforce her 
authority, then this is only one of the many 
sophistical differenciations between "doingand 
having done," or "having caused to be done." 
The church educated her followers at all times 
to the belief u that to propagate A. M. D. G. 
the realm of the church would justify war, 
shedding of blood, compulsion and tyranny, 
and history does contradict your Eminence in 
so many instances that none need be quoted. 

But as the less educated are also expected 
to read this present protest against the Propa- 
ganda as advocated by your Eminence, I may 
be permitted to refer to the one of many 
cases, to the decrees of Crusades by the 
Popes Innocent III. and Honorius III. against 
the followers of Vaux and their protector 
Count Raymond of Albigeois and Toulouse — 
to the atrocities committed under and devas- 
tation resulting from these decrees, (1212-1229) 
and to the completion of the conversion of the 
Albigenses by the Roman Catholic Institution 
of the Holy Inquisition. 

And the tendency of the Roman Church to- 



— 80 — 

wards using arbitrary power for the suppres- 
sion of her antagonists has not left her alto- 
gether. Its expression only is modified. 

The tendency of conquest by the use of 
sword, fire and rack has modernized in the 
United States of North America into a propa- 
ganda by persuasion for political power and 
for a majority of voters as instrumental to the 
ruling power of the Roman Hierarchy. 

And the Roman Church has devised sundry 
appropriate means and methods of increasing 
her voting power, and in consequence her polit- 
ical power with a view towards securing a 
majority and in consequence the controling 
political power. 

The almost infallible method to gain a Ro- 
man Catholic voter is to educate a young citi- 
zen to become a Roman Catholic voter. Thence 
the Church's assiduity in behalf of secterian 
education. It is true, that the fright of agnos- 
ticism is driving protestant Zealots* in the 



* jACKS0NViLLE,FLA.,Dec.l4.-The Presbyterian Synod 
of West Florida and Alabama has been in session at Pen- 
secola for the past three days. A profound sensation, 
was created by Dr. Shearer, President of Davidson Col- 
lege, North Carolina, in his address last night. The 
reverend gentleman denounced the common school sys- 
tem of the country, whose non-sectarianism prevented 
education of youths in the religion of their fathers. He 
Advocated strongly the advisability of having the child* 



— 81 — 

same direction, namely, towards helping the 
BomanChurchin carrying out her ambition and 
bold conspiracy against the proudest of Amer- 
ican institutions, the public non-sectarian 
school system. And true it is, that the pro- 
testant people at large are helping the Roman 
Church, though involuntarily, unintentionally 
and inadvertently, in carrying out her plans, 
by their own infringement on the unsectarian 
character of our public schools in persisting 
on and maintaining Bible readings in their 
public schools. Neither from a literary or 
aesthetic nor from a general scientific stand- 
point, nor in the matter of acquaintance with 
the history of mankind, nor even for the 
children's morals can anything be gained by 
these readings, — the usual effect being to 
cause them to look at home for the chapters, 
which the teacher had skipped and thus to 
initiate them into some of the most obscene 
reading, the literature of any one nation ever 
produced. 

Another method for increasing the voting 
power of the Roman Church in the United 



ren of Presbyterians educated in schools fostered by the 
church, so that therein they might receive religious 
training in consonance with the faith of their parents, 
and moral instruction now denied to an appreciable ex- 
tent in the Government educational institutions. 



— 82 — 

States of North America is the ardent mission- 
ary work now being carried on by the Church 
amongst the negroes of the South. 

And still another method taken into view 
and worked at present although not intended 
to be carried out in the nearest future is the 
converting of Indian tribes to the Roman 
Church, and then to have them accepted as 
voting citizens. 

And this propaganda does not exclusively 
take shape in your Eminence's address to the 
people of this republic,but it receives a power- 
ful impulse also from outside by the bold 
outcry of " Independence or Annexation ", 
as now openly raised by the Roman Catholic 
officials and press of the Provinces of On- 
tario and Canada,they being ready to carry out 
the treasonable instructions received from the 
Hierarchy.* And the flag thus raised has the 



*Montreal, Dec 14. — The feeling in favor of annexa- 
tion to the United States is growing stronger in Canada 
every day. The Montreal Aldermen recently paid a visit 
to St. Paul and several other points, and since their re- 
turn many of them have expressed themselves boldly in 
favor of the annexation of Canada to the United States. 
The feeling has been increased by the threats of the Eng- 
lish majority in the Dominion to deprive the French 
Canadians and Roman Catholics of the rights guaranteed 
to them by the treaty of Paris. Several of the French- 
Canadian papers have declared in favor of annexation. 

Last night the Club National, the leading French- 



— 83 — 

evident object to bring about an increase 
of the Roman Catholic voting power 
within the United States of North America. 
The Roman Church thus seems to be preparing 
for its conquest of these United Spates, by 
more refined methods than those applied 
under Louis VIII. and Louis IX. in France or 
under Spanish and Roman rule on the South 
American Continent in former centuries. 

If the means applicable under altered cir- 
cumstances have turned out to be "persuasion" 



Canadian political organization, which is backed by the 
Quebec Government, held a crowded meeting to discuss 
the question whether annexation would be in the inter- 
est of the Canadian people. Several speakers opposed 
the movement, but a sensation was caused by President 
Gouia, who is the son-in-law of Premier Mercier, the head 
of the Quebec Government, coming out strongly in favor 
of annexation to the States. He said, that with many 
others he would be in favor of a Canadian republic, but 
the conduct of the English majority in the Dominion 
showed, that they could not expect to receive fair play 
from the majority in such a republic, and they would pre- 
fer to cast their lot with the people of the United States 
under the American Constitution, which was the freest in 
the world. The French-Canadians would have also abso- 
lute liberty and all their rights would be respectei. 

Several other prominent speakers also declared in favor 
of annexation. A sensation was caused by the stand 
taken by President Gouin, as it is believed he is inspired 
by Premier Mercier, whom he accompanied to the recent 
Baltimore Convention. It is believed the club will de- 
clare in favor of annexation. — New York Sun,I>ec. 15, 1889* 



— 84 — 

almost exclusively, it is certainly great pro- 
gress of humanity, that "persuasion" no longer 
takes such shape, as it took in the case of 
Galileo, and would have taken with Coperni- 
cus and Kepler had they been within Roman 
jurisdiction. And it is on the other hand an 
honor to the church, that as in the case of 
Cardinal Hohenzollen at Galileo's time, so at 
all times there have been prominent men in the 
fold of the church free of zealotic fanatism. 

But to persuasion there are as yet sundry 
modifications. So your Eminence attempts to 
persuade the North American people, that free 
thinkers and agnostics are no better, than 
ancient pagans were, a position being true to 
the general tendency of the Roman Church. 

In fact theChnrcli takes to*vardsheretics(and 
now towards agnostics) thesame unjustified po- 
sition as taken by the pagan Tacitus (your Em- 
inence on page 262) took towards Christianity 
calling it "a detestable superstition provoking 
the just hatred of humanity**. And thesame 
consequences are the result now, as they were 
then, namely: persecution on the one hand and 
martyrdom and propagation jointly on the 
other. 

And then as now the persecutors (p. 262) 
do not think it worth w7iile to inquire into 
the charges^ which prejudice and hate had 



— 85 — 

invented against an inoffensive people n . 

And at the present age (p. 262) "The 
conservative element in society opposes be- 
cause it (agnosticism) is new, and because the 
{old) worship had the authority of venerable 
antiquity. This is the religion, which they 
and their fathers had followed for genera- 
tions, and they can not calmly suffer this new 
sort to disturb the old order of things" . 

Your Eminence states (on p. 9) as follows: 
While these images are passing through the 
press, we are informed by the daily papers, 
that an anti-Christian Sunday school has 
been opened in a public hall in Baltimore, 
and that weekly sessions are regularly held 
there. We learn from the same source, that 
some Protestant clergymen of our city have 
urged the Mayor to suppress this infidel 
school. Waivixo the question" of right 
which the civil authorities may have to 
interfere in matters of this kind, i do 
not believe, that any radical cure of this 
religious distemper can be effected by repress- 
ice measures. It is not by coercion, but by 
the voluntary surrender of the citadel of the 
heart, that man is converted. Coercion only 
drives the poison into the social body, where it 
secretly ferments. Oar divine Saviour never 
invoked the sword to vindicate His doctrines. 
He rebuked his disciple, when he once drew 
the sword in defense of His Master, and com- 



— 86 — 

manded him to put it back into its scabbard. 
* i The weapons of our warfare, ' ' saps the Apos- 
tle, iL are not carnal" but spiritual; they are 
the loeapons of argument, of persuasion and 
charity. The only sword I would draw 
against the children of unbelief, is "the 
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of 
God; ' ' and the only fire I would light against 
them, is the fire of divine love,which our Lord 
came to enkindle in the hearts of men. - In a 
word, I would convince them, that Christian- 
ity "is profitable for all things, having the 
promise of the life that now is," as well as 
"of that which is to come" 

Your Eminence thus yields to circumstances 
only. If the Roman Church possessed as yet 
political influence or power enough for repres- 
sive measures, the Roman Catholic conscience 
would forbid to your Eminence to waive the 
question of right to interfere in matters of 
the teaching of heresy in the United States. 
Your Eminence could not well contradict this 
assumption, because it rests on the preced- 
ents and ecclesiastical practices, as demon- 
strated for centuries and on the teachings 
of the Roman Church as such. 

That Jesus of Nazareth forbade to his disci- 
ple to use brutal power,has absolutely no value 
for demonstrating, that the Roman Church did 
or would do the same. The practices of the 



— 87 — 

Churchill this matter as in many others have 
for many years not been the practice of Christ. 
To deny this, because the Catholic Sovereigns 
and the Church were two, would be subterfuge 
only. Had Christ ever assumed the exterior and 
appearance of a prince, as your Eminence does; 
the judgment of Pontius Pilatus would have 
been a just one instead of an unjust one, such 
as the story goes. What in the teaching of 
Christ justifies the Roman Pontifex in claim- 
ing, that he cannot (non possumus) relinquish 
temporal power and possession without betray- 
ing his mission as the high priest of the Church 
of Christ? 

There are many good reasons to believe, that 
were Jesus of Nazareth to reappear on the 
earth at the present moment, he would not 
find it in accordance with his own teachings 
and prescriptions to belong to the Roman 
Catholic Church and much less to live as a 
prelate of the church does. 

To compare Christianity of later centuries 
with Paganism of earlier centuries has no ele- 
ment, by which those living at present can be 
convinced, either that their free thought or 
agnosticism sets them back into paganism, 
nor that the Christian practices of the present 
day are any better, than those of free thinkers 
would be, did they have the temporal 



— 88 — 

means, as the church has, to practice with, or 
were they sufficiently bent in this direction 
and sufficiently numerous to collect the same 
worldly wealth as the Roman Church does. 

It is traditional with the Roman Church to 
apply all what its prominent defenders against 
paganism once said against pagans, also to 
modern searchers for facts and truth. But 
the practice nevertheless is not a good one, 
because nothing can thus be rationally 
proven. 

Before leaving the allusions of your Emi- 
nence's book I beg leave to state, that the 
question as to who, the pagan or the christian 
human individual, enjoyed the greater happi- 
ness in quantity and quality, has been many 
times discussed and differently answered, but 
whichever way the decision may fall, it is ir- 
relevant as to the questions under considera- 
tion, other social conditions relating to the 
same questions. 

Under equal surrounding conditions it would 
appear probable, that as against the one, whose 
conscience is continuously troubled b^ doubt- 
ing what he holds himself in duty bound to be- 
lieve, the other one, whose convictions, con- 
science and duties are in peace and harmony, 
is more apt to feel happy than the former. 

One of the reasons, why the Roman Cath- 



— 89 — 

olic Church be eligible to a higher de- 
gree than other religious creeds, your Emi- 
nence has claimed to be the Roman 
Church's anti-slavery championship. 

What an enormous error is it to attribute 
the melting away of human slavery to the 
effulgent rays of the gospel, if under gospel 
the teachings of the Roman Catholic clergy 
are meant. 

Has there ever been such a thing heard of, 
as a conflict between the Roman Church and 
the Southern slaveholders ? 

The Roman clergy confined itself in this 
case, as it had in all others, to admonish the 
slaveowner to charity and the slave to patient 
endurance, but the institution as such was 
not known to be contrary to the doctrine 
and effulgent rays of the lights of the Roman 
Church. A Baltimore or New Orleans arch- 
bishop of ante-civil war times would have very 
much hesitated before preaching the melting 
away of slavery. 

In 1839 for the first time, and only when 
Protestant England was practically suppress- 
ing slave trade, Pope Gregory XVI. enlisted 
the church in the same endeavor. 

Thus the Roman Church modified her me- 
thods of propagation of faith from the applica- 
tion of brutal power to incrimination of her 



— 90 — 

adversaries and again to sundry varieties of 
persuasion. One of the later phases shown is 
your Eminence's fictitious proposition to meet 
agnostics on their own ground of proof by in- 
tellectual labor. The proposition to persuade 
the intellectually untrained, being the latest 
phase of Roman propaganda, would be an 
advantageous move,* if it were to pass un- 
heeded and without protest, and this republic 
might one day awaken, were the move to be 
successful, to the fact, that it be under the 
authority and rule of the Roman Pontifex, 
who then without any doubt would supercede 
your Eminence or your Eminence's successor 
as the head of the Roman Hierarchy of the 
United States of North America and would 
find all the church's boldest visions as to tem- 
poral power realized by the influence his 
Holiness would then exercise on our political 
powers, and might even find it opportune to 
be elected President of the United States 
through a majority of Roman Catholic voters, 
and to have the term of office changed to life- 
time, restoring on this continent the so-much 
coveted temporal power, it having proven im- 
possible to restore it in modern Rome. 

Another method, that has been sucessf ully 
applied for the purpose of producing in the 
human mind faith in the teachings of the 



~ 91 

Roman Church is that of causing the individ- 
ual intended to be converted to persistently 
pray for the divine grace of the true catholic 
(Roman) faith. To this method of propagating 
RomanCatholic faith, your Eminencehas devot- 
ed a considerable part of the book, ' ' Our Chris- 
tian Heritage". And indeed it may be said, 
that this method is so efficacious, that the 
very fact of its application under the instruc- 
tions of the church or of her servants is al- 
most a sure guarantee for success on the part 
of the Church in producing the coveted 
"faith". But is this then a real proof in 
favor of the supernatural and of revelation, 
or in favor of the teachings embraced by such 
" faith"? The Southern man, whom your 
Eminence persuaded to "pray" "0 God 
give me light to see the truth, and strength to 
follow it", and who "gave an earnest assur- 
ance, that he would repeat this prayer day 
after day with all the fervor of his heart" y 
when he first informed your Eminence, "that 
between him and me {your Eminence) there 
was an impassable gulf lohich no reasoning 
could bridge over" , was one of that numerous 
class of humanity, that has advanced only 
to a half way station in the search for truth, 
and the wits of whom are not sharp enough 
for dealing with an intellect so well trained as 



— 92 - 

that of your Eminence or other priests of the 
Roman Church. There existed indeed no im- 
passable gulf between the sick man and the 
Roman faith, because the man's admissions 
indeed did away with the necessity of all rea- 
soning on your Eminence's part. The man in- 
advertently described correctly the situation 
in stating that "na reasoning could (or be 
needed to) bridge over" "the gulf". The 
gulf proved to be one of sentiment only, but 
none of intellect. The admissions as if they 
were proven facts made by the man, li struck 
down by a fatal malady" (surely not without 
affecting both body and mind) of the "exist- 
ence of a Supreme Being, the Author of Crea- 
tion, the living Source of life", being "omnis- 
cient' , "omnipotent", "infinitely good", and 
oi"the reasonableness of " the assumption, 
"that He will mercifully hearken to our peti- 
tions" , all this left indeed no room for further 
reasoning on your Eminence's part. The fact 
of such admission being ascertained, the sick 
man's intellect offered no resistance and as 
" morphine" to the nerves so "prayer" had 
only to be applied to the sick man's petty- 
scruples or sickly inconsistency in order to 
give his whole sick soul to faith. 

He who prays under s icli a.sssum prions is 
intellectually beaten beforehand, and prayer 



— 98 — 

is to him but a mental soporiferous narcotic, 
a quieter to the unsatisfied, unsettled, incon- 
sistent mind. 

If your Eminence describes this fatally sick 
man's yearning (compare p. 39 of this book) 
as i% the echo of the voice of humanity" , as 
ik t7ie expression of a sentiment indelibly en- 
graved o?i the soul of mankind", then this is 
one of those illogical generalizations of petty 
incidents into philosophical axicms of which 
''Our Christian Heritage," is so full on page 
after page, that the discriminating intellect 
draws from them the conclusion, that the 
cause must be weak, in the support of which 
so untenable arguments need be advanced. 

When Tyndall proposed the test of prayer, 
agnosticism stood as yet on the basis of sim- 
ply refusing to assume what could not be 
proven. The conclusion now arrived at, that 
the supernatural be unprovable, this capstone 
to the agnostic structure, had it then been 
known, would have protected this savant 
against becoming guilty of so inconsistent a 
proposition as the test of prayer. 

If the human infant rushes to the arms of 
the stronger visible mother, this proves naught 
with regard to the real existence of the super- 
natural. If man finds comfort in illusion, 
this has naught in common with proof for the 



— 94 — 

existence of a divine supreme individuality 
interfering in a sporadic arbitrary way in 
favor of the one human being as against an- 
other one, no prayer being imaginable almost, 
to which there would not exist a simultaneous 
and antagonistic counterpart. 

To what abnormities the application of the 
otherwise soothing taental drug "prayer" 
can be carried, is fully illustrated in Asia by 
the dancing Dervishes, in Europe and on this 
continent by the drumming, chanting, vocifer- 
ating and praying Salvation Army. 

Both are fulfilling a mission, namely, to show 
that fanatics constitute as yet an ingredient 
in human society to be accounted for, and to 
demonstrate the necessity of non-sectarian 
education, so that our young citizens' minds 
may first acquire the necessary strength and 
discretion before being exposed to the in- 
fluences of fanatical sectarians, through whom 
strife and conflict alone can be imparted to 
human society but neither happiness nor men- 
tal peace. It is not probable, that amongst 
the "busy restless class", prayer will prove 
an efficacious method of propagating the 
Roman faith, while amongst their wives and 
daughters it is the custom to do the praying 
for the family. 

As human society is constituted, they find 



— 95 ■- 

comfort in the practice, but it is not the rule, 
that they pray for the enslavement of their 
own or their husbands' and brothers' intellects. 

Prayers in common by religious communi- 
ties form in present society an important in- 
gredient and contribution to the enjoyment of 
life, a promoter of mutual tolerance and char- 
ity and in consequence of human happiness, 
and practiced and limited so as not to infringe 
on the equal right of all, who would object to 
them? 

But to reasoning humanity it would never- 
theless appear, that the exclusive use of the 
ritualistic Latin language in all official prayer 
and ceremonies, and the resulting characteri- 
zation of our good Saxon English as less good 
for prayer and as virtually too profane for ad- 
dressing Divinity therein, as the Roman 
Church has it, should turn the sympathies of 
our citizens more to Protestantism than to the 
predominantly Latin Church. 

My next letter will more specifically consider 
the eventual practical results of the Roman 
Church propagating in the United States dur- 
ing the coming century at the same rate as it 
has during the past century. 



SIXTH LETTER. 

The Roman Catholic Church is a Serious 

Danger in Itself to the Institutions 

of the United States of 

North America. 

Tour Eminence 

When all the facts be considered, as they ex- 
ist, it wiJl appear, that the teachings and the 
practices of the Roman Catholic Church are 
absolutely and totally incompatible with the 
free institutions of this republic, and that the 
Roman Catholic Church as such is in revolt 
against these institutions, and is by its very 
nature and tendencies bound to destroy the 
free institutions of this republic as speedily, as 
it will control a majority of voters. 

With a majority of voters adhering to Pro- 
testantism the North American people would 
continue to enjoy home rule and the fruits of 
the great reform movements in the 16th and 
17th centuries and of the 30 years war, while 



— 98 — 

under a majority of catholics exercising sov- 
ereignty in the United States, under the 
authority of a Roman Pontifex, home-rule 
would be as effectively dead, as it was before 
our first American revolution. And so much 
worse yet would foreign rule be, as it would 
involve not our temporal wealth but the free- 
dom of our consciences and convictions. 

It is this civil and political side of the ques- 
tion, which causes your Eminence's book to be 
considered as a danger to the free institutions 
of the North American people. And in conse- 
quence there is sufficient reason, that it should 
not be allowed to pass without a word of warn- 
ing and contradiction, such as those from 
the very reverently undersigned. 

To show, that this be confessedly so on the 
part of those in the fold of the Roman Catho- 
lic Church, their following official declaration 
prepared under the watchful eyes of the 
hierarchy and issued by The first Congress of 
Catholic Laymen in tlie United States is here set forth : 

" The meeting of the first Congress of Catholic lay- 
men in the United States to celebrate the hundredth 
anniversary of the establishment of the American 
hierarchy is an event of the greatest importance to 
our Church and country. It would seem eminently 
proper, that we, the laymen of the Church, should 
meet and renew our ailegiance to the doctrine we pro- 
fess; that we should show to our fellow- countrymen 



— 99 — 

the true relations that exist between tiie Church (hat 
we obey and love and the government of our choice; 
that we should proclaim that unity of sentiment up- 
on all subjects presented to us, which has ever been 
the source of Catholic strength, and that in a spirit 
of perfect charity towards every denomination we 
should freely exchange our views in relation to all 
matters, which effect us as members of the Catholic 
Church. 

"In the first place, then, we rejoice at the mar- 
velous development of our country, and regard with 
just pride the part taken by Catholics in such develop- 
ment. In the words of the pastoral issued by the 
Archbishops and Bishops of the United States assem- 
bled in the third Plenary Council of Baltimore, l we 
claim to be acquainted both with the laws, institu- 
tions and spirit of the Catholic Church, and with the 
laws, institutions and spirit of our country, and we 
emphatically declare that there is no antagonism be- 
tween them. 7 

" We repudiate with equal earnestness the asser- 
tion,that we need to lay aside any of our devotedness 
to our Church to be true Americans and the insinua- 
tion, that we need to abate any of our love for our 
country' s principles and institutions to be faithful Catho- 
lics. We believe that our country's heroes were the 
instruments of the God of nations in establishing their 
home of freedom. To both the Almighty and to his 
instruments in the work, we look with grateful rev- 
erence, and to maintain the inheritance of freedom 
which they have left us, should it ever-— which God 
forbid — be imperiled, our Catholic citizens will be 



— 100 — 

fonnd to stand forward as one man, ready to pledge 
anew 'their lives, their fortunes and their sacred 
honor.' 

u We cannot, however, shut our eyes to the many 
dangers that threaten the destruction of the social 
fabric, upon which depend our peace, our liberty and 
our free institutions. Although our wealth has in- 
creased and prosperity abounds, our cities have mul- 
tiplied and our States increased, we find under the 
shadow of this system incipient pauperism, discon- 
tented men, women and children without the benefits 
of education, without advantages of religion, de- 
prived of any share in that abundance or participa- 
tion in the blessings, which through our free institu- 
tions God Almighty has designed for the people of 
ou£ land. 

Remembering the distinction between Pagan and 
Christian civilization as to the heed to be paid to the 
right of the individual, we favor those means, 
measures and systems, by which these blessings are 
to be secured to all alike.* 

"We recognize, next in importance to religion 
itself, education as one of the chief factors in form- 
ing the character of the individual, the virtue of the 
citizen and promoting the advance of a true civiliza- 
tion. Therefore we are committed to a sound popu- 
lar education, which demands not only physical and 
intellectual, but also the moral and religious train- 



? How does this correspond with the Hierachy's posi- 
tion towards the * Anti-Poverty u movement and Rev. 
McGlynn. The Author. 



— 101- 
ing of our youth. As in the State schools, no provision 
is made for 9 teaching religion, we must continue to sup- 
port our own schools, colleges and universities already 
established^ and multiply and perfect others, so that the 
benefts of a Christian education may be brought within 
the reach of every Catholic child within tliese United 
States. 

a We also recoguize among the three great educa- 
tional agencies, besides the church and school, the 
Christian home. l The root of the commonwealth is 
the homes of the people. J Whatever imperils its 
permanency, security and peace is a blow aimed not 
only at individual rights, but it is an attempt to 
subvert civil society and Christian civilization. 

u Therefore we denounce the existence and de- 
velopment of Mormonism and the tendency to mul- 
tiply causes of divorces a vinculo as plague spots on 
our civilization, a discredit to our Government, a 
degradation of the female sex and a standing 
menace to the sanctity of the marriage bond. We 
likewise hold, that it is not sufficient for individual 
Catholics to shun bad or dangerous societies, but 
that they ought to take part in good and useful 
ones. The importance of Catholic societies, and 
the necessity of union and concert of action to ac- 
complish aught, are manifest. These societies should 
be organized on a religious and not on a race or na- 
tional basis. We must always remember that the 
Catholic Church knows no North or South, no East 
or West, no race, no color. National societies, as 
such, have no place in the Church in this country, but, 



_ 102 _■ 

like this Congress iUelf, they should be Catholic and 
American." 

"We commend the plan and form of the St. Vin- 
cent de Paul Society as a typical Catholic society. 
It is impossible to enumerate all the societies, whose 
labors have done so much in the past to succor the 
poor and alleviate human misery, and it must there- 
fore be left to individual action to select the field,in 
which each shall aid in religious and charitable work. 
As our young men, however, are the hope of the 
future, we especially commend them to the support 
and encouragement of Catholics. As these were com- 
mended in a special manner by the Plenary Council, 
we recommend the establishment of these societies 
throughout the land and urge upon the laity the im- 
portance of supporting them by every means with- 
in their power. We recommend the extension of 
societies designed to assist the widows and children 
of deceased members, societies for the relief of the 
poor and distressed, not forgetting measures tend- 
ing to improve the condition of inmates of our penal 
institutions. 

" Another danger which menaces our republic is 
the constant conflict between capital and labor. 
We, therefore, at all times must view with feelings of 
regret and alarm any antagonism existing between 
them, because thereby society itself is imperiled. 
With the Church, we condemn Nihilism, Socialism 
and Communism, and we equally condemn the 
heartless greed of capital. The remedy must be 
Bought in the mediation of the Church through her 
action on the individual conscience and thereby on 



— 103 — 

society, teaching each its respective duties as well 
as rights : and in such civil enactments as have been 
rendered necessary by these altered conditions. * As 
stated by His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons, ' labor 
has its sacred rights as well as its dignity. 7 Para- 
mount among the rights of the laboring classes is 
their privilege to organize or to form themselves 
into societies for their mutual protection and bene- 
fit. In honoring and upholding labor the nation 
is strengthening its own hands as well as paying a 
tribute to worth, for a contented and happy work- 
ing class is the best safeguard of the Bepublic.' n 

"We disapprove of the employment of very 
young minors — whether male or female — in factories 
as tending to dwarf and retard the true development 
of the wage-earners of the future. We pledge our- 
selves to co-operate with the clergy in discussing 
and in solving those great economic, educational and 
social questions which effect the interests and well- 
being of the church, the country and society at 
large. " 

"We respectfully protest against any change in the 
policy of the Government in the matter of the educa- 
tion of the Indians, by which they will be deprived 
of Christian teaching. ■ That the amelioration and 
promation of the physical and moral culture of the 
negro race is a subject of the utmost concern, and 
we pledge ourselves to assist our clergy in all ways 
tending to effect any improvement in their condi- 
tion. 

"We are in favor of Catholics taking greater part 
than they have hitherto taken in general philan- 



— 104 — 

thropic and reformatory movements. The obliga- 
tion to help the needy and to instruct the ignorant 
is not limited to the needy and ignorant of our own 
communion, but we are concerned, both as Catholics 
and Americans, in the reformation of all the criminals 
and the support of all the poor in the country. By 
mingling more in such works of National virtue as 
our non-Catholic fellow-citizens are engaged in and 
taking our proper share jn the management of pris- 
ons and hospitals we might exert a Catholic influence 
outside of our own body, make ourselves better 
known and infuse into those good works something 
of supernatural charity, and at the same time that 
we are solacing the unfortunate and reforming the 
erring; and we should be able to insist on Catholic 
inmates being freely ministered to by their own 
clergy. We must assert and secure the right of 
conscience of Catholics in all institutions under pub- 
lic control. 

" There are many other Christian issues in which 
Catholics could come together with non- Catholics and 
shape civil legislation for the public weal. In spite 
of rebuff and injustice and overlooking zealotry we 
should seek alliance with non-Catholics for proper 
Sunday observance. Without going over to the Ju- 
daic Sabbath we can bring the masses over to the 
moderation of the Christian Sunday. To effect this 
we must set our faces sternly against the sale of 
intoxicating beverages on Sunday. The corrupting 
influence of saloons in politics, the crime and pauper- 
ism resulting from excessive drinking. require legisla- 
tive restriction which we can aid in procuring by join- 









— 105- 
ing our influence with that of the other enemies of 
intemperance. Let us resolve that drunkenness 
shall be made odious and give practical encourage- 
ment and support to Catholic temperance societies. 
We favor the passage and enforcement of laws rigidly 
closing saloons on Sunday and forbidding the sale of 
liquors to minors and intoxicated persons. 

Efforts should be made to promote Catholic read- 
ing. It is our duty to support liberally good Catho- 
lic journals and books and acquaint ourselves with 
Catholic doctrine and opinion on the important 
questions constantly coming to the front and demand- 
ing right answers and just practical solutions. 
There are comparatively few Catholics who cannot 
afford the cost of a Catholic journal or who do not 
spend more for a story paper or a novel than the 
price of one. 

"We not only recommend Catholics to subscribe 
more generally for Catholic periodicals, quarterly, 
monthly or weekly, but look with eagerness for the 
establishment of daily Catholic newspapers in our 
large cities and a Catholic associated press agency. 
If our Catholic literature is not equal to the standard 
by which we measure it, this is due, at least in part, 
to the slight encouragement now given to Catholic 
writers of the better type. If the best Catholic 
books were extensively purchased and read, more 
would be written, which we should be proud of. We 
recommend, therefore, the work of Catholic circulat- 
ing libraries and reading circles and also efforts to 
have the best Catholic books and periodicals intro- 
duced into public libraries. But we do not call all 



— ioe — 

books Catholic that are written by Catholics, nor a 
journal which is Catholic on one page and infidel or 
immoral on another. 

" As fast as practicable we hope for the introduc- 
tion of proper church music in all our churches 
where other music is now heard. The music should 
help devotion at the divine service, and not be such 
as tends to divert the mind from heavenly thoughts.* 
Efforts should be made to have the congregation join 
in the singing — a Catholic custom formerly, but 
practised in only a few churches nowadays. 

" We cannot conclude without recording our sol- 
emn conviction that the absolute freedom of the Holy 
See is equally indispensable to the peace of the 
Church and the welfare of mankind. We demand 
in the name of humanity and justice that this free- 
dom be scrupulously respected by all secular govern- 
ments. We protest against the assumption by any 
such government of a right to affect the interests of 
control the action of our Holy Father by any form of 
legislation or other public act to which his full appro- 
bation has not been previously given, and we pledge 
to Leo XIII., the worthy Pontiff, to whose hands 
Almighty God has committed the helm of Peter's 
barkf amid the tempests of this stormy age, the loyal 



* This properly understood, though, must be read be- 
tween lines means the expulsion from all connection with 
religious exercises of all music except the so-called Grego- 
rian, thus anathematising, Hay den, Beethoven and the 
like. [The Author.] 

t The main assistant in the steering of St. Peter's bark 
is the College of Cardinals. Its composition is one of the 



— 107 — 

sympathy and unstinted aid of all his spiritual child- 
ren in vindicating that perfect liberty which he 
justly claims as his sacred and inalienable right ". 

The foregoing manifesto? s main character- 
istic is precisely expressed by the French 
proverb: Qui s' excuse s' accuse. (He who 
excuses himself involuntarily accuses him- 
self). Would any of the protestant sects find 
it necessary to declare: " That there is no 
antagonism between laws, institutions and 
spirit of the Church on the one hand and of 
this country on the other." 

It does appear to all non-Roman Catholics, 
that such antagonism indeed does exist, and 
that the above sweeping assertion is bluntly 
contradicted by other parts of the same man- 
ifesto. The cutting loose and abjuration from 
all dependence and obedience to foreign poten- 
tates is a first condition to citizenship of these 
United States of North America. In contrast 
therewith is contained and prominently ex- 



best evidences of the fact, that to the Roman Church the 
nearest to Rome has always appeared to be the most reli- 
able in controversion of any cosmopolitan character, 
which she is well inclined to assume. On the American 
(N. & S ) continent there are fifty million Roman Catholics 
Ontario and Canada not included. They are represented 
by two Cardinals. Small Italy has about half that num- 
ber of Roman Catholics but is represented by thirty-two 
Cardinals. — [The Author]. 



— 108 — 

pressed in the hereabove copied official procla- 
mation of the Catholic Laymen (voters) of the 
United States, the voluntary declaration, that 
these Laymen do obey the church, that they love 
it, while the government of the United States 
is alluded to as the government of their (prac- 
tical) choice. 

Again while it is declared, that there be no 
antagonism between the laws, institutions 
and spirit of the Catholic Church on the one 
hand and of this country on the other, the 
manifesto declares in contradiction thereto the 
intention to destroy our institution of non- 
sectarian public schools. 

As shown in the beginning of my fifth letter 
a government just to all has indeed no other 
choice but to be unsectarian in all its laws and 
practices. If the government of the United 
States is practically unloyal to this first prin- 
ciple of a just government by giving practical 
preference to protestant clergymen as against 
those of other confessions, as against ignoring 
them all, then this failing in one point though 
an encouragement for Roman Catholics for 
further infringement on the fundamental prin- 
ciples of our institutions, can form no justifi- 
cation therefore. 

But the difference as between the two is, 
that the infringement on the part of protestant- 



— 109 — 

ism is one of petty practice not involving a fun- 
damental principle and being a concession to 
the majority's still existing intellectual bond- 
age under orthodoxism; while Romanism 
advances claims being incompatible with the 
fundamental principles of our government. 

Be it assumed for a moment, that the Roman 
Catholic Church after a successful propagation 
amongst the busy ones ^having neither inclina- 
tion nor time to consider the question of 
creed, with the thoroughness it evidently de- 
serves, or amongst the very class your Emi- 
nence's address (book) is directed to — should 
have become possessed of a majority of voters 
in the United States.* 

Are they not organized for election pur- 
poses more thoroughly than any other polit- 



* When papacy first organized the N. A. Hierarchy, 
the official statistics furnished, showed a Roman Catho- 
lic population of 44,500. 

The present Roman Catholic population of the United 
States (Hoffman's Catholic Directory for 1890} is esti- 
mated at 8,301,367 which shows an increase in 100 years 
at the rate of 1:186.5. 

It so happened, that in the year 1790 also the first 
general census was taken in the United States of North 
America showing then a population of 3,929,214. The 
present population, being estimated at 60,000,000 there 
has been an increase of the total population in the same 
100 years at the rate only of 1:15.27. 

Therefore the increase of the Roman Church was due 
to increase in population in general for only one third 



— 110 — 

ical body on this continent ? Can there be a 
question as to what practical turn the politi- 
cal action of this organization would take, even 
in case the appearance of independent nomin- 
ations be preserved? Obedience to the Church 
must govern such nominations as often, as any 
question relating to the interests of the Church 
be at issue. And the Church will never fail 
to give her order and command, there being 
presumably always a question at issue, in which 
the church as well as the Catholic conscience 
is involved, as for instance the question of 
sectarian or non-sectarian public schools — of 
the temporal possessions and civil sovereignty 
of the pope, the suppression or non-suppress- 
ion by the civil power of educational institu- 
tions founded by freethinkers or agnostics, 
(your Eminence waiving the later question ev- 
idently only for the present) — the suppression 



of the total, while two thirds of her increase was due to 
proselytes from other faith communities joining the 
church. A calculation based on these statistical facts 
would also make it appear, that at the same proportion- 
ate increase of both the nation and the Roman Catholics 
the next 60 years would give to the Roman Church a 
majority of the population and of the proportionate vot- 
ing power, thus rendering it probable, that between 1950 
and 2000 all branches of our general Government (Con- 
gress, Judiciary and Executive), would be in the hands of 
the Roman Catholics and of t\\e Rpman Pontifex in con- 
sequence, 






in the public press of what to the Roman 
Church is "blasphemy" only, but which in 
reality is the scientific discussion of topics, 
in which humanity at large is deeply, 
intensly interested, and about which it has a 
full natural right to be informed and disa- 
bused — the educating of Indian tribes so as to 
become proselytes of the Roman Church and 
in consequence Roman voting citizens — the 
bestowing of voting power on women, it be- 
ing assumed, that the female mind when 
trained in sectarian educational institutes (by 
nuns) is apt to be directed more by sentiment 
than by intellect and in consequence to be sub- 
ject to Church influences to a higher degree 
than men. 

An invasion and conquest of Canada pre- 
tendedly in the interest of freedom but really 
for the purpose of increasing the Roman 
Catholic voting power would under the rule 
of a Roman Catholic majority of voters and 
of their elected representatives with the obe- 
dience of all to the Roman Pontifex be with- 
in probability. 

Were the sovereign people of the United 
States, electing the instruments of both the 
legislative and executive power, to become a 
people of Roman Catholics,all our institutions 
would soon be shaped in accordance with the 



— 112 — 

spirit of the Roman Church. And what has 
this spirit proven to be? 

The recent declaration of the dogma of the 
infallibility of the Roman Pontifex when 
speaking ex cathedra (officially)creates the ap- 
pearance of a tendency toward absolutism. At 
all events all power in the government of the 
church has been taken away from the people 
at large, and its hands, although they are ex- 
pected to be open at all times for largely con- 
tributing to the needs of the Church and of 
the clergy, are thoroughly manacled by the 
church law, that all property intended for 
religious or parish purposes cannot be 
held by the single communities themselves, 
but must be transferred to the hierarchical 
organization, before any priest of the Church 
may there officiate. Laymen have no longer 
the power of electing the priast officia- 
ting to their religious requirements, the elect- 
ion of teachers in their schools is under the 
dictation and approval of priestdom, and pref- 
erence is given to men and women, the intellect 
of whom has been warped to the effect, that 
they believe exclusion from contact with the 
world will befit them better for preparing our 
children for their travel on the high road of 
busy life, and whose vow of celibacy and ex- 
clusion from legitimate intercourse with the 






— 113 



other sex constitutes them as a permanent 
danger to public morals. 

Therefore there can be no reasonable doubt, 
but that any legislative assembly with a ma- 
jority of Catholic members, obeying to the 
commands of the Roman Church, as given 
by her acknowledged infallible represen- 
tative, the Roman pope, — would destroy the 
institution of non-sectarian public schools, 
would spend the public moneys for the sup- 
port of Roman Catholic schools, would be pre- 
vented in their consciences from appropriating 
moneys to the use of schools of heretics. 

And the Catholic executive power of the 
United States would be in conscience held to 
propagate the influence and power of the 
Roman Church in our political institutions by 
absorbing preferably catholic Canada, Mex- 
ico and Cuba, to aid in the re-establishment of 
the temporal power of the Roman pontifex,* 



**The views of Roman Catholics as to the temporal power 
of heir Pontifex is clearly set forth in a speech made to 
the Congress of Roman Catholics at Baltimore. 

Charles J. Bonaparte eloquently discussed "The Inde- 
pendence of the Holy See," the necessity for which he en- 
thusiastically upheld. He gave a vivid sketch of the 
changing conditions from the time of Charlemagne to the 
moment of the Italian Government's forcible deprivation 
of Pius IX. of all temporal authority, and the enactment of 
the "Law of Guarantees" whereby the Italian Parliament 



— 114 — 

though such action might involve the United 
States in war, with half of the European 
powers. All At Majorem Dei Qloriam, 



professed to guard the papal rights. The vital part of the 
paper was the conclusion, which was substantially as fol- 
lows: 

"It has been suggested, that the more important provis- 
ions of the 'Law of Guarantees' might be embodied in a 
treaty between all the great powers, and thus obtain an 
international sanction. I think this suggestion looks in 
the right direction. One day the independence of the Holy 
See may perhaps be warranted by diplomacy, but, when it 
affords a solution for this great problem diplomacy, will be 
the mouthpiece of a practically unanimous opinion 
throughout the Catholic, I may say the whole Christian 
world; a public opinion which Italians will respect, not so 
much because they fear as because they share it. A real 
solution will never be found in bargains between Kings 
and Cabinets nor in the accidents of wars or revolutions. 
The ultimate sanction for the liberty of the Holy See must 
be neither military force nor the words of compacts, how- 
ever solemn, but the universal conviction among good 
men of all countries, that to violate it would be to wrong 
mankind. 

"Catholics do less than their duty, if they fail to say, and 
to say so loudly and plainly, that no one can even pretend 
to mistake their meaning, that the Holy See has been and 
is gravely wronged; that against this wrong they tem- 
perately but firmly protest, and will protest so long, as it 
remains unrighted; that while the freedom of the Holy See 
is in jeopardy the Church is not at peace; and that the 
Sovereign Pontiff,in vindicating this freedom, not as a priv- 
ilege to be given or withheld by any earthly power, but as 
an inalienable right embraced in his divine commission, 
has and will ever have the unwavering support of all his 
spiritual children". 



— 115 — 

though our freedom of conscience and our 
equality before the law and in the exercise of 
our political rights should be destroyed, and 
i unless a new, more bitter, more bloody war for 
freedom of conscience be fought once more, 
than the history of the human race has seen 
before. 

Agnostics cannot accept the Puritan doc- 
trine shared in equally by all orthodoxism 
(Catholic or Protestant) as described by Dr. 
Lyman Abbot (Plymouth Church, Brooklyn) 
of our civil government being a "divine insti- 
tution based not upon the divine right of Icings 
but upon the divine right of 'the people, allow- 
ing only church members to take part in po- 
litical affairs". Nevertheless Agnostics do 
accept and adhere to the exhortation made by 
the same orator (December 29, 1889): 

"Go into politics, and if you have a con- 
1 science, carry it with you. And go into party 
politics. If you believe that taxation should 
be limited to the expenses of the Government, 
and that those expenses should be only those 
incurred in the protection of life and property, 
taJce your stand fairly and honestly as a Dem- 
ocrat. If you believe that the Government 
should protect and promote industry by a 
system of taxation, then be a Republican. 
But be one thing or the other^ and of all 



— 116 — 

things do not for the sake of your manhood 
let the shameful words pass your lips: ' I 
dortt take any interest in polities' ". 

And they adhere to the very true dictum of 
Grover Cleveland: "An educated man has 
certainly no excuse for indifference (10th An- 
nual Banquet Cornell University Club, N. Y). 

And it is claimed, that this question as to 
the Roman Catholic Church being a serious 
danger in itself to the free institutions of the 
United States of North America, and to the 
equal rights of its citizens, is one deserving 
serious attention of all sincere adherents to 
the principles of Democracy in the larger 
meaning of the word. 

If thus it has been shown, that the Roman 
Catholic Church be a danger to the freedom of 
conscience of American citizens and to the non- 
sectarian character of the government of the 
North American Union and States, we may 
also for a moment, consider the position, the 
Roman Church assumes towards the econom- 
ical progress of the North American people. 

The danger seen in the conflict between 
capital and labor is met with the declara- 
tion, that such antagonism between the two 
is viewed with regret and alarm, but all 
remedies so far opposed are condemned and 
the mediation alone of the Roman Church 



. —117 — 

between the two is declared as a possible 
remedy, and what is recommended in the shape 
of societies has the evident tendency to bring 
the laymen into a closer contact with the cler- 
gy and to intensify their subjection to the 
clergy and the church. 

Since Mr. Bellamy has done the enormously 
meritorious act of giving and introducing anew 
name for a science and lawful programme, which 
under its old name (thanks to the monarchical 
European press and its apish followers on this 
continent) had become a fright for big Ameri- 
can children, — Americans have begun to un- 
derstand, that the organization of a people for 
economical purposes and with the object of 
increasing general happiness can be made and 
should be made the subject matter of scien- 
tific research and of practical legislation. 
But the Roman Church does want neither 
such research nor such legislation and the 
manifesto of its American followers condemns 
all of it under the indefinite term of " Social- 
ism". It is no longer u Socialism ", with 
which the big children can be sent to their 
bed of thoughtlessness, but it is "Nationalism", 
with which the American people will have to 
set itself right sooner or later. 

It should not be overlooked in connection 
with the Roman Church's economical views, 



— 118 — 

that in the earlier stages of Christianity the 
sect was essentially a communistic fraternity, 
that in its later development community of 
ownership and property was narrowed down to 
a caste of selected ones, the so-called religious 
orders. 

But while these favored children of the 
Roman Church reject still at this date indi- 
vidual ownership either of their lawful inher- 
itance or of the product of their labors, they 
as a community practice the accumulation of 
temporal wealth, as if this were one of the 
chief objects of their existence, and to such 
an extent, that some European States were 
forced into defensive legislation against such 
accumulation of real property in a "dead 
hand", as such ownership has been named. 

The acquisition of temporal power and of 
wealth, since the day when Pepin le Bref 
gave a piece torn off from the Byzantine Em- 
pire to the Bishop of Rome, who made it the 
fundamental stone, on which the papal tem- 
poral power was built — has appeared as the 
chief practical function of the Roman Church 
on the face of the earth. And to this purpose 
has the main activity of her servants been di- 
rected, a fact of which the enormous wealth 
bears evidence, which atpresentis held tightly 
in the hands of the Church, notwithstanding 



— 119- 

monarchical greed or republican self protection 
has from time to time stripped her of her 
superfluities. 

To the Roman Church there are at the end 
of the nineteenth century but two ways 
left, for keeping its hold on the masses 
and for propagating its faith, namely either 
poorness and consequent ignorance of the 
masses or the educated fanatism and con- 
sequent blindfolding of the intellecually half- 
trained. 

Research for the fundamental principles, 
on which human society should be organized, 
in order to procure all of the individual happi- 
ness obtainable within natural limits, and 
consequent fundamental legislation is abhor- 
rent to the instincts of the Roman Church, 
because such research and such happi- 
ness must propagate opportunity for and 
knowledge itself and thus alienate the masses 
from Church discipline. 

Hence the general anathema pronounced 
against all but " such civil enactments, as 
have been rendered necessary by these altered 
conditions" . 

And the pledge : To co-operate with the 
clergy in discussing and in solving those 
great economical, educational and social ques- 
tions, which affect the interests and well being 



— 120 — 

of the church, (first) the country (next) and 
society (last) at large", clearly expresses the 
programme of no other discussion and solu- 
tion but under the control of the clergy, all 
of which is totally un-American; the Amer- 
ican people having so far emancipated as to 
take care of its social and political affairs 
without the tutelage of the clergy 

From all this it is evident, that the Roman 
Church will act as a hindrance against all 
economical legislation and organization of 
and for the people at large and for its in- 
creased happiness, by which not its own inter- 
est be fostered in the first place. 



; 



nri r. 



SEVENTH LETTER. 

What Creed the American Citizen 
Should Select. 

Tour Eminence ; 

That coming generations should also enjoy 
the boon and glory of the free institutions of 
this great republic, to the shores of which mil- 
lions have fled from oppression, hoping to find 
freedom of conscience and individual liberty 
in matters of conviction and belief, this all de- 
pends on the Roman Catholic Church never 
obtaining a majority of votes in the Republic. 

With the acquirements in knowledge and 
science at the present time we stand in a posi- 
tion, where, if we desire to select and accept 
any creed by our free volition and inclination 
and without compulsion and with the full 
knowledge, that true religiosity be monopo- 
lized by no creed on the one hand and be con- 
ditional to none on the other, it is proper, that 
in such selection, we should as citizens of this 



— 122 — 

nation, consider besides the probable result of 
such selection on tlie welfare of ourselves in- 
dividually, the result also, as far as the nation 
at large be concerned. 

In the preceding letter I have shown the 
probable result of a majority of voters of the 
United States of North America becoming 
Roman Catholics. But personal, individual 
reasons point in the same direction concerning 
the selection of the community we should join 
if any. 

It may be conceded, that to those, who ac- 
cept the so-called divine revelations, as they 
are described in the so-called Book of Books, 
and who accept the logics of facts, as there 
described and stated, the Roman Church may 
appear more acceptable than other religious 
communities, because it carries these accepted 
revelations, these described facts and their 
logical sequences to the severest conclusions. 

But, if appearing thus most acceptable to 
many, it also is apt in carrying these funda- 
mental conditions to their utmost conse- 
quences, to demonstrate best their absurdity 
under scientific criticism. 

What does it mean in your Eminence's 
mouth to claim that in the souls of agnostics 
the foundation of natural truth has been under- 
mined? (compare p. 19), while their entire en- 



— 123 — 

deavors are directed towards the establishment 
of natural truth, and while all the Roman 
Church's endeavors are directed towards per- 
verting the human mind from such natural 
truth and substituting therefore pretensions in 
the guise of "Knowledge of Supernatural Re- 
ligior£\ for which all foundation in facts is 
lacking, which is beyond human faculty of 
ascertaining, and which has practically resulted 
in enlisting humanity in fanatism and intoler- 
ance as against itself and its own happiness. 

Does a church, the chief representative of 
which on this continent resorts to such feats 
of intellectual contortion, recommend itself to 
the straightforward American mind % 

Enough has been shown in the preceding 
pages to demonstrate to the honest searcher 
for facts and truth, that the claims of the Ro- 
man Church of being the exclusively correct 
expounder of religious truth have remained 
without acceptable proof. And if not accepta- 
ble on this account, is it acceptable as a con- 
tributor to human happiness % 

It cannot be contributive to happiness to be- 
long to a church, which will refuse to bury 
the children at the side of their parents, un- 
less to the last of their breathing they have con- 
fessed to the creed and to the practices of the 
Church,have loved not what the Church hates, 



— 124 — 

a church, which carries into modern times all the 
barbarian instincts of intolerance, as they have 
marked its history from the very time, it 
ceased to be itself oppressed and to strive for 
liberty of conscience, and when it developed 
into a power and an oppressor itself. 

If we select to join a religious community, 
it will be better to join one, where as little as 
possible of dogma, and as much as possible 
of mutual charity be preached, and to shun 
a community, where our children's brains will 
be stuffed from the first teachings, they listen 
to, with horrible pictures of purgatory, and 
temporal tormentation in after life, which 
may be bought off with money on the part of 
those being left behind to be bestowed on the 
direct worldly benefit of its priestdom, and 
of eternal tormentation, as the result of not 
accepting all the teachings, as the Roman 
Church upholds them, and from time to time 
expounds them, such as the infallibility of 
the one mortal, the Pontifex, amongst all 
other mortals, and such as the dogma of Mary, 
both conceiving as a virgin and being con- 
ceived herself immaculately, that is in some 
different way from the manner, in which all 
other human beings are conceived, all the 
rest of humanity being assumed to be endowed 
from their very conception not only with all 



— 135 — 

the discrepancies and weaknesses of human 
nature but besides with a kind of supernat- 
ural inheritance of a sin committed by Adam 
and Eve, when they, as the story is told by the 
author of the book "Genesis", ate the fruit 
from the tree of knowledge, which we are told 
was then already forbidden, as priestdomisapt 
to forbid it to-day, except when taken for the 
purpose of befitting to the acceptance of their 
teachings, and by which fruit,although Adam 
did not die the very day he ate it, as he had 
been specifically told, that he would die, his 
eyes were opened. It certainly is our fault, 
if at this late date we do not judge with 
opened eyes. 

It will be better to shun a community, where 
the human intellect is expected to eradicate 
its own conclusions, and to substitute them by 
the acceptance of incredible assertions, such 
as the bible is claimed to make them and as the 
Roman Church makes them, such as to see and 
eat a wafer and believe to have seen and eaten 
a piece of a humanized tripartite interest in the 
Almighty Divinity and World Creator Him- 
self. 

The sole fact, that it is a practice of the Ro- 
man Catholic church, to have the wives and 
daughters of Catholic citizens, enter the goUt 
fessionalof a man, though he be a clergyman, 



— 126 — 

and there to have them lay open and have dis- 
cussed the secrets of their hearts and bodies, 
should deter every true American man, bearing 
respect to the women of his race, from joining 
the Roman Catholic Church, not to speak of 
the presumption as between man and man, 
that it requires the instrumentality of one, 
to bring about divine forgiveness for another. 
Americans as a rule are too proud and too 
busy to find time for confessing their sins into 
the ears of another man. 

The Roman Catholic creed and church does 
not contribute to increasing the happiness of 
the nation or the citizen, therefore your 
Eminence not having made good the asser- 
tion (page 10) concerning us, that Christian- 
ity, in special in its Roman Catholic form, be 
profitable for all things, having the promise 
of the life, that now is as well as of that, 
which is to come, many (including the rever- 
ently undersigned) will respectfully decline 
being drawn into the folds of the Roman 
Church. 

Very Respectfully 

Mich. De GUvarelle. 



INDEX. 



A. 






Page, 


Abbott, Dr. Lyman 


115 


Absolutism 


V 10 


Absurdities in Scriptures 


16 


Accusations 


75 


Admiration 


30 


Age, bustling 


9 


Agnosco 


42 


Agnosticism 


30, 34 


Agnostics, avowed enemies of Christianity 


15 


a confessions 


26 


11 corrupted 


15 


u deny the Sovereign ruler 


15 


si description of 


15, 29 


" earn a cheap reputation 


15 


•« feasting with fear 


15 


«* glory in their infidelity 


15 


u insist on knowing everything 


15 


" like dumb beasts 


15 


il to be ignored 


24 


u to be met on narrow ground 


24 


11 to, darkness reserved forever 


16 


11 trade in blasphemy 


15 


" claiming not to know 


42 


u answer 


64 


" say 


66 


" will not accept any stories 


16 


11 will not learn 


15 


Aggression by the Roman Church 


10 


Albigenses 


79 


Ambition, individual 


29 


A. M. D. G. 


79 


Anathema 


12 


Ancestors 


44 


Anniversary, 100th of Hierarchy 


9 


Antagonism 


99, 107 


Anti-Slavery Championship 


89 


Apes, anthropoid 


63 


Architect of the temple of nature 


47 


Artist 


47 



— 128 



Asia minor 




52 


Astronomy 


57, 


59 


11 Kepler's Epitome of 




57 


Assertion, false 




27 


Assumption, as to what be good 
(t of influence 




21 
12 


Atheists 




65 


Atmosphere of faith 




18 


Austria 




51 


Author, divine, of sacred volume 




55 


Author invisible, clearly seen 
Authority claim of, and of ignorance 




47 




43 


Authority 12, 21, 


28, 


58 


" civil 




13 


Authors, ecclesiastical 




17 


Authorship, human 
Axioms, Philosophical 

Ball set a rolling 




62 




93 




60 


Bavaria 




11 


Being, spiritual 
,l Supreme 


37, 


20 

47 


Beliefs and creeds 




43 


Bellamy 




117 


Beverages, Intoxicating 
Bible 
" readings 




104 
56 




Kr\f 

81 


Birds 




62 


Blasphemy to let divinity reveal arrant nonsense 




49 


Blasphemy, agnostics accused of trading in 


15, 


27 


Blasphemy, if a possible thing 

Blasphemy, the Scientific Discussion of Topic 




49 


8, 




Humanity is interested in 




111 


Blood, shedding of . 




79 


Body, human 




41 


Bonaparte, Chas. J., on Indepence of the Holy Sea 
Bondage 




113 




24 


Boston, Watchman 




83 


Brewster, Sir D. B. 




57 


Bridge between Supernaturalism and Naturalism 
Buddhism 




42 


21, 


22 


Buddhist 




22 


Byzantine Empire 




118 


Canada 




83 


Catholics, Number of, in U. S. 




109 



— 190 — 

Capability of senses 45 

" of submission 40 

■ 4 of tradition 27 

Capital and Labor 1 02 

Captatio benevolentiae 18 
Caricaturing doctrine and 

Cathedra, ex 12 

Cause, natural 39, 45 

Catholics, Roman 52 

u Greek 52 

Centuries 16th, 17th 97 

Cessation of organic activity 41 

Charlemagne 118 

Christ, divine claims of 20 

Christianity 22 

■ ' Justice done to 31 

u its place in history 52 

Christians 27 

Church Music 106 

Churches falling in 83 

Church, Roman 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 

28, 30, 31, 32, 34, etc 

* l Roman, to settle scientific questions 56 

Circumstances, in which the Scriptures were written 16 

Civilization, Pagan and Christian 100 

Class, The busy restless 14, 17 

" estranged to Christianity 18 

Clergy, Protestant 17 

•■■•' Roman Catholic 27 

Cleveland, Grover 116 

Commandments 20 

Communication from the Supernatural 44 

Communism 102, 118 

Comparison 43 

Composer, Divine, of Spherical Music 47 

Conceptions, Mental 20 

Conduct, Individual 82 

Confessing 80 

Confession of Ignorance 43 

Conflict with Roman Creed 28 

Confucians 52 

Conscience, Freedom of 12 

" Voice of God 20 

Consciousness, 43 

" To account for 42 

Contradictions in Scriptures 16 

Copernicus 57 

Courtesy 29 



I 



— 130 — 

Court of reason 21 

Cowardice, Moral 18 

Creation 49, 59 

" of N. A. Hierarchy 9 

Creator of the Universe 37 

Creeds 32, 43 

" Human, Originate 46 

Creed and Religion 31 

" One, only .24 

Creeds, Orthodox Christian 21, 23 

Criticism of the Scriptures ? 34 

Crusades 79 

Custom with the Roman Church 31 

r>. 

Darkness 48, 49 

Darkness, Spiritual 18 

Darwinism 42, 64 
Day 49, 59, 60 

Dead-Hand 118 

Death 21, 41 

Declamation, Childish 53 

Decrees of Providence 20 

Deity, Incomprehensible 16, 34 

Delusion, Happy 19 

Dervishes 94 

Description of Agnostics 25, 27 

Desires, Sensual 20 

Destruction of the Social Fabric 100 

Dictates from Rome 18 

DifFerenciations 79 

Disfranchising the Minority 11 

Disputes as to creeds 76 

Divinity 32 

Doctrine 27 

Dogmas 66 

Dogmas, Buddhist 22 

Dogmas, Christian 22 

Dogmas, Newly Created 12 

Dogmas, Registered 27 

Doubt, Mental 18 

Draper 53 

Drunkenness 105 

Dukes of Bavaria 11 

E. 

Earth— Globe 62 

Education, Distorted 18 

" Conscience Outcome of 20 



— 131 — 



Education, Nonsectarian 


44 


94 


" Popular 
44 of Indians 




100 




103 


Educator of Humanity 




31 


Effect 




38 


Elsmere, Robert 




21 


Encroachment of Rome on Liberty of Conscience 




27 


Enemies of Christianity 


26, 


30 


Enthusiasm for Knowledge 


30, 


32 


" for truth not begotten in vice 




27 


Enunciator, Self Appointed, of Agnosticism 




29 


Error 




24 


Evidence, Historical 




21 


Evolution 




42 


Evolution, First Step of, Unexplained 




42 


Evolution, Gradual 




48 


F. 






Fact, First, Unexplained 




42 


Facts assertainable 




41 


Faculties, human 




38 


Faculty of Rendering Proof for a Supernatural 






theorem 




37 


Faith 




74 


Fairy tale 




49 


Faith and Religion Confused 




31 


" Vague and Undefined 




18 


14 Mohammedan 




70 


Fanaticism 




78 


Fanatic 


81, 


94 


Fighting for Freedom of Conscience 




31 


Firmament 




48 


Foe, The Common 


14, 


17 


Fold, Christian, To Lead Back to 




19 


a of the Roman Church 




9 


Fossils 




61 


Fowl 




62 


Francon Sovereigns 
Freedom of the Holy See 




13 




106 


Freedom of Conscience 12, 


31, 


53 


Freethinker, Professional 




24 


French Canadians 




83 


Fruit tree 




48 


Gr. 






Oalileo 




57 


Genealogy 




63 


Generalization 




93 



182 



Generation of infidels 




88 


" Rising 




26 


Genesis 


52, 


59 


Geology 
God, Personal 




59 




19 


Gordon, Dr. A. J. 




33 


Gouin 




83 


Government, Providential, of the World 




55 


Government, Unsectarian 




108 


Grace Founded on Nature 




19 


" of believing 


24, 


40 


Grass 




48 


Gravity, Law of 




42 


Gregorv XVI. 
Ground, Common 




89 




29 


il Agnostics stand on 




24 


K. 






Hallucinations 


35, 


72 


Happiness 


23, 76, 


88 


Harmony between Science and Revelation 




52 


" with Surrounding Nature 




76 


Hatred 


26, 


78 


Haynes, Dr Emory J. 




83 


Heart, Human 




52 


Heathen in Boston 




33 


Herb 




48 


Heretics 




17 


Hierarchy 


9, 27, 


90 


a Creation of 




9 


History 




29 


il of Mankind 


81, 


42 


" of Early Humanity 




45 


Hoffman's Roman Catholic Directory 




109 


Hohenzoller, Cardinal 




84 


Home rule 




97 


Honorius III. 




79 


Humanity, Educating 




30 


Early 




48 


" in general 






Huxley 


33, 


58 


I. 

Ignatius of Loyola 




28 


Ignorance of Phys. Laws 




16 


" of Agnostics. 




16 


Illusions 


35, 


72 


Imagination, Infantile 




48 



— 133 — 



Immortality 




21 


Immutability of species 




63 


Inaccuracy 




80 


Inclinations, Evil 




20 


Incongruities between the unseen and the visible 


46 


Increase of Roman Church in U. 8. 11, 


109, 


110 


Index librorum prohibitorum 




74 


Indians 




11 


Individuality 




41 


Infallibility 




63 


Infidelity, Agnostics glorying in 
Ingratitude of Roman Church 




27 




14 


Inheritance of Freedom 




99 


Inheritance, Freedom of 




99 


Inimity to Christianity 




26 


Innocent III. 




79 


Inquisition 




79 


Institutes, Educational 




28 


Intellect, Human 




69 


Interest, Tripartite in Divinity 




68 


Intellect, Superior to Grace 




24 


Intercourse between Supernatural and Natural 




44 


Investigation 




39 


Isolation of Sexes 




22 


Israelite 




52 


•X. 






•Japan 




52 


Jesus Christ 13, 15, 


86, 


87 


Jews 


u, 


52 


K. 






Kepler 




57 


Kingdom, Animal and Vegetable 
Kings of Bavaria 




61 


11, 


12 


Knees 




24 


Knowledge, Human 




39 


" of the Supernatural 




51 


" of Supernatural Religion 




19 


Koran 




70 


Hu 






Labor, Intellectual 


45, 


74 


Latin, Ritualistic 




95 


Lawgiver, Divine 


16, 


49 


Law of Guarantees 




114 


" Moral 




49 


" Physical 


16, 


20 


" Universal 




49 


Laymen 


81, 


98 



— 134 — 

Laziness, Intellectual 45 

Leaders, Assumed 35 

Lecturers 27, 31 

Leisure to peruse bulky volumes 9 

Leo XIII. 106 

Liberty of Conscience 13 

Life, To Account for 42 

■ Natural 78 

" Supernatural 79 

" Eternal 31 

" of Agnostics 30 

" of Catholic Clergymen * 30 

Light, Longing for 23 

Light 49, 60 

r Ready made 48 

Limits to Human Faculties 46, 65 

Louis XVI. 10 

Louis Philip 10 

Loyola, Ignatius of 28 

M. 

Majority of Readers 9, 14 

Majority of Voters 97 

Man, Part of Nature 38 

" of His Origin and Destiny 62 

Martyrs of Science 13 

Blood of 13 

Marvel, Greatest 49 

Masses, Roman Catholic 31 

Masses Following Freethinkers 17 

Masses, Ignorant 14 

Masses Outside of Christ Creeds 21 

Means, scanty 29 

Mediation of the Church 102 

Membership of Creed Community 76 

Men, Ungodly 15 

Messier, Premier 83 

Method to gain a R. C. voter 80 

Millenium of Happiness 18 

of persecution 52 

11 of experience 28 

Millions of Dollars 28 

Mind 24 

Miracles 65 

Misrepresentation 35 

Mohammed 70 

Money Making 29 

Monopoly on Religion 32 



135- 



Moon 


48, 


49 


Moors 




11 


Moses 


52, 


53 


Music, Heavenly, of the Spheres (?) 




47 


Mysteries 




16 


IS". 






Napoleon I. 




10 


" III. 




10 


Nationalism 




117 


Nations, Bestowing Liberal Education 




26 


Natural 




32 


Naturalism 




42 


Nature, Part of 




39 


' l li Individual 




28 


* ' Moral and Religious 




18 


Necessity, Political 




10 


New England 




33 


Newspapers, Catholic 




105 


Night 


49, 


60 


Nihilism 




102 


Nonsense 




49 


Nation, False 




20 


Novitiate 




28 


O. 






Oath 




23 


Obedience to the Church 




110 


Obedience to the Roman Church 


99, 


110 


Objects to Christianity 
Obligation, Men's Moral 




16 




55 


Obliquity, Moral 




18 


Observations 




38 


u Methodical 


39, 


72 


" Repeatable 




40 


" Manner of 




45 


Obstinacy, Fanatic 




49 


One amongst many 




26 


Ontario 




82 


Opinion 




42 


Order, Chronological, of Moses 




61 


Origin of all things 




43 


" " Genesis 






Orthodoxism 




35 


I*- 






Paganism 


1 13 


, 31 


Pagans 




17 


Pantheists 




65 



~i3d — 



Papacy 




63 


Parade of Irreligion 




18 


Passions 




21 


Pauperism 




100 


Penetration of Nature by the Supernatural 




67 


Period of Existence 




43 


Personality of Hierarchy 


It. 


22 


Persuasion 


10, 


78 


People, Roman Catholic 




27 


Perception, Sensual 
Periodicals, Catholic 




43 




106 


Philosophy 




16 


Physiologist 




63 


Pius IX. 




113 


Placet, Royal 




11 


Planets 




62 


Plenary Council of Baltimore 




99 


Pontifex, Roman 


12, 


90 


Power, Political 




80 


H Spiritual 
H Temporal 


10, 


68 


7 


10 


* " Exercised by the Church 




58 


" Voting 




80 


Practice of the Church 




10 


Prayer 44, 


90, 91, 


92 


Predecessors in the Hierarchy 




9 


Prerogatives of Kings 




11 


President of the United States 




90 


Press Asst. Agency, Catholic 




105 


Priests of the Roman Church 


80, 


67 


Principles of Religion 


7 


18 


Prisons and Hospitals 




104 


Privilege to organize 




103 


Procesees, Creative 




61 


Proof for Supernatural Theorem 




44 


** Rational, of Existence 




37 


" Secular 




68 


Promise 




23 


Propagating the Roman Catholic Faith 


77, 


90 


Protestantism 


34| 


97 


Protestants 


11. 


23 


Protestant writers 




13 



Quebec Government 83 
Quotations from Cardinal James Gibbons 1 book 

''Our Christian Heritage" 9, 18, 14, 15, 16 

Questions, Supernatural 41, 42 



-137 



R. 






Rack 




80 


Rate of Increase of Roman Church 




109 


Raymond of Albigeois 




79 


Reading, Obscene 




83 


Reason, Unaided 




46 


Rebuke 




75 


Reform Movements 




97 


Relief 




32 


Religion 




76 


" Natural 




19 


New 




29 


" Supernatural 


19, 


32 


Remus 




57 


Repetition from eccl. Authors 




17 


Reptiles 




62 


Republic, French 




10 


" of Scientists 




32 


Reputation, Cheap 




29 


Research* and Religion 




31 


Resistance to aggression 




11 


Revelation 35, 43, 


64 


" Rejected 


21, 


23 


" . The Boldest 




52 


Revolutions, Planetary- 


57, 


60 


Right and Wrong 




49 


Rights, Divine, of Passion 


22, 


22 


Road to Roman Catholicism 




75 


Rule of the Church 




10 


" Spanish 




11 


Rulers, Political, of U. S. 




10 


Ruler, Sovereign 




15 


Sacrifices Hard to Flesh andTBlbod 




18 


Saloons in Politics 




104 


Salvation 




20 


Salvation Army 
Saints 


n, 


94 




72 


Scandal 




22 


School System 




81 


Science 




38 


Scientists 




30 


jfe Modern 




48 


Scoffer at Religion : rii' • 




15 


Scoffing at Religion i 




31 


Scripiurea. Revealed 




10 


Scruples 




92 



— 138 — 



Search for Facts and Truth 12, 


24, 


26 


Selection, Intellectual 




35 


Sense, Sound 




16 


Senses, Human 


38, 


39 


Shearer, Dr. 




80 


Shintoism 




52 


Shock to Moral and Religious Nature 




18 


Skeletons 




61 


Slaveholders 




89 


Slavery 




89 


Socialism 


102, 


117 


Soul 




46 


Souls, Salvation of 




20 


Source of All Human Knowledge 




56 


Sovereign People 




10 


Sovereigns 




10 


u Spanish 




13 


li Their Resistance to Roman Church 




11 


Sovereignty 




10 


Space at Large 




38 


Speaking ex Cathedra 




12 


Step, First, to Evolution 




42 


Storyteller 




49 


Submission, Violent, of Intellect 




40 


" Grace 




40 


Substance 


39, 


42 


Suddenness of Creation 




48 


Sufferers from Church Compulsion 




26 


Sun 48, 49, 


57, 


etc. 


Sunday Observance 




104 


Supernatural 16, 32, 


39, 


73 


Supernaturalism 




42 


Support of Catholicism by Protestants 




14 


Supreme Being 




73 


Suspicion Against Teachings 




35 


Sword in Hand 




11 


11 Roman Church Draws no 




79 


T. 






Tacitus 




84 


Teaching, Public 




12 


Te Deum laudamus 




10 


Tendency to Use Brutal Power 




79 


Test, Critical 




38 


Theologians 




76 


Theology 




42 


Theorem 




23 


Theorems, Natural 


39, 


41 



— 139 — 

Theorems, Supernatural 40, 41 

Ther sites 15 

Things, Indigestible 33 

Natural 42 

Thiers, President 10 

Thought, Human 39 
Tradition 27, 60 

Training, Intellectual 44 

" Moral and Religious 100 

Transmission, Intellectual 43 

Tribes, Indian 82 
Trickster 

Trinity 19 

Truth of Natural Religion 18 

" Revealed i 6 

Tutelage by the Clergy 120 
Tyndall 33, 93 

XJ. 

"Unanimity of Mankind 47 

Unbelief, Modern 62 

Unknown, The 24 

Untrained, Intellectually 24 

V. 

"Vaux 79 

Veracity, Want of 30 

Vice 27 

Victim 69 

Vigor, Moral and Intellectual, to resist 18 

Vincent de Paul Society 102 

Virtue 22 

Voice of Conscience 20 
Volume, Affectionately Addressed to Those 

Estranged to the Gospel 18 

Voters 80 

Vow 23 

Vulgarity 28 

W. 

Wafer 68 

War, 30 Years 97 

Weakness, Human 32 

Wealth 88 

Wickedness 24 

Will, Curbing of 28 

Women 111 

World, Material 16 

" Supernatural 16 

Writers, Protestant 13 

" Catholic 105 



Zealots 
Zealotry 



140 



31, 80 
104 




— 141 — 

All correspondence must be enveloped twice: 
1st (inner) with the mark I I 

2d (outer) with direction to " Polytechnical News Company," 

New York (7 Pearl Street). 

PROPAGANDA 
VERITATIS NATURALIS. 

Society for Propagating Natural Truth. 
CONSTITUTION". 

1. The Propaganda Veritatis Naturalis is intended to spread 
all over the earth and therefore named in a language used by all na- 
tions. She has associated for the purpose of propagating knowledge 
about natural things as a safeguard against superstition and 
against the false claims of teachers of supernatural theorems. 

2. This purpose is to be promoted by seven methods namely: 

a. Personal attendance to local meetings of members of both sexes 
of the association. 

b. The establishment and use of libraries under the control of 
the P. V. N. containing preferably such literature, by which 
the intents of the Propaganda V. N. will be fostered. 

c. The establishment of abodes for Propagandists to meet in, 
their libraries to be kept in, and the people to be admitted in, to 
hear natural truth expounded. 

d. The publication of a series of books and periodicals to show 
and explain the position assumed by the P. V. N. and to propagate 
such knowledge as will foster the tendencies of the Propaganda. 

e. The mutual promotion of the temporal welfare of and by all 
members of the Propaganda V. N. by giving to them at least 
legitimate preference under equal conditions in all cases involving 
the interest of members. 

f. The maintenance of special voluntary associations with condi- 
tions equal to all and on an elective basis for securing work to the 
industrious, information to the intellect, care to the sick or 
poor, and honorable burial to the dead. 

g. The support by members of the P. V. N. within their own polit- 
ical party of members of theP.V. N. in all nominations and elec- 
tions for public offices. 



142 — 



3. The Propaganda V. N. is both national and international. 
Her organization is that of a people ruling itself by conferring in 
election its authority to its own temporary agents for legislative, 
judicial and executive purposes, her Constitution being similar 
to that of the United States with unimpeached autonomy of all 
parts and stages in her organization, the different orders having 
the sole object of training the members for the necessary functions 
within the organization. 

4. The Propaganda Veritatis Naturalis is as a Tree and consists 
of Roots, one Trunk and Branches. 

Her Roots are the National Associations, (National Chapters) 
each with Autonomy of Organization, parted one from another 
by their idioms, each including seven orders (1 to 7). 

Her Trunk consists in the International Organization (In- 
ternational Chapter) of Legislators (Congress). Advisers (Senate) 
and the executive authority, the Great Grand Master. 

Her Branches are the International Workers chosen from 
National Chapters, chosen by and acting under authority emanat- 
ing from the Great Grand Master, Masters of National Chapters. 
They include orders 11 and 12 of the Missionary Chapter,one order of 
missionaries acting in their own chapter, and one order acting 
as envoys to other chapters. 

5. The Propaganda Veritatis Naturalis has members, who 
enter as such of the first order, and may, by virtue of holding an 
ele tive office in the order or by election amongst their equals, or 
by appointment through either the National or International Ex- 
ecutive Power be advanced from order to order. 

6. The twelve orders of the Propaganda Veritatis Naturalis are. 

f 1. Order of Readers. 
TJiinkers. 

Speakers. (Local Expounders) 
Lecturers. 

Writers (Local Officers). 
Workers (National Officers) or 
Founders (Apostles). 
Grand Master of National 
Chapter. 

Legislators ( Congress ) Ex 

Grand Masters of National 

Chapters. 

Advisers ( Ex-Great Grand 

Masters). (Senate). 

Great Grand Master, by whom 

all Charters to Chapters 

or Parishes are executed. 



National Chapters 



2. 


i' 


3. 


a 


4. 


tt 


5. 


a 


6. 


n 



International 
Chapter 



7. 
8. 

9. 
10. 



— 143 — 

r 11. Order of Permanent Commisioners re- 
presenting the International 
Great Grand Master in each 
Missionary national Chapter (Ex-Great 

J Grand Masters and Ex- 

Chapter ; Grand Masters) 

| *12. " Envoys extraordinary from 
the International Great 
I Grand Master to National 

Chapters. 

7. The Propaganda uses (international) signs of recognition 
each order adding one to those of the lower orders. 

8. Only at official gatherings of the Propaganda Y. N. members 
are under obligation to respond to calls for recognition. 

Willingness to respond to all calls for recognition by members 
of the Propaganda V. N., is expressed by the wearing of the Pro* 
paganda V. N.'s Emblem. 

10. Readership (First Order) is acquired by the purchase or 
six of its serial publications, evidenced by the return of blanks 
taken from the copies purchased, and involves no obligations but 
entitles to admission to the second order (of thinkers) without 
other formalities than the registration in the secret lists of the 
Propaganda V. N. as members of the second orders. 

11. Applicants to the second order are entitled to be informed oi 
the By-Laws of the Propaganda before entering the same and of the 
signs and emblems of their order and of the symbols, with which 
the officers of their order sign. 

12. The mark: "Published by order of the Society for Propa- 
gating Natural Truth", or other words of the same or similar 
meaning can be attached to any book or periodical only under a 
written authority from the "Secretary for Publications of the Society 
for Propagating Natural Truth.''' 1 And this authority is given 
only under a special order from the National Grand Master, who 
shall previously hear the workers, and such order is not made, 
unless the book or periodical be printed on the P. V. N.'s own 
presses or be issued under contract, by which the P. V. N. receives 
a share in the proceeds towards her administrative expenses. 

The Propaganda V. N. does not assume by such mark responsi 
bility for all contents but signifies the approval of the general 
tendency of the publication only. 



Printed by resolution of the Senate and by order of the 
National Grand Master of the chapter of the U. S. N. A., and by 
order of the Great-Grand Master of the Propaganda V. N. 
The Secretary for Publications of the 

Society for Propagating Natural Truth. 



D 



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